A two-and-a-half tonne SUV that doubles as a supercar may sound unlikely, but so expansive is the bandwidth of the new Sport SV that Range Rover has delivered just that
Words Darren Styles
CARS
I have no intention of robbing a bank, officer. Absolutely not. Nothing to see here, please move along.
However, entirely hypothetically you understand, wereI to succumb to the temptation of ill-gotten gains, then the new Range Rover Sport SV would likely be both a) the perfect getaway car — four adults in comfort, plenty of room for the loot, will outrun any panda car across any terrain — and b) the requisite opportunity to launder north of £180k in exchange for the (already sold-out) Edition One specification you see here. Though it’s a bit chicken and egg, I guess, as without robbing a bank most of us aren’t going to have the readies for this set of wheels in the first place.
That said, it’s the same money you’d need for an Aston Martin DBX, Bentley Bentayga or Lamborghini Urus, each similarly specified and (variously) as capable, as well assembled and as quick. So maybe it’s less about if you could, and more about if you should. To which (spoiler alert), the answer is an emphatic yes. And here’s why.
The Range Rover has, forever, been the first and most convincing of the high-end, multi-purpose, go-anywhere, do-anything SUVs. Others, individually, may squeak it on performance, or luxury, or supercar brand status, but none has quite the bandwidth of a Range Rover. It is supreme off-road, sublime on it, has a unique, classless cachet all its own and, simply put, can do more, more of the time. It’s a Swiss army knife of a thing, if the Swiss army were based out of Fortnum and Mason.
The Sport model, as the name suggests, is a slightly more sporting take on the full-fat Rangie formula, oft-favoured by footballers and/or their wives and girlfriends. But it’s a two-and-a-half tonne 4x4, so it’s a matter of degree — there’s only so much sport you can add. Until now, that is. Because it’s fair to say the new Range Rover Sport SV rewrites a number of laws, those of physics among them.
The visual clues are there: a deeper front end newly wearing side vents, quad tailpipes out back and swollen rear arches to house 23-inch wheels (made of carbon fibre for a further £6,900 if you wish, with brakes to match for £7,000 more). And the SV doesn’t flatter to deceive — beneath the (also carbon-fibre) bonnet is a BMW-sourced, 4.4-litre, twin-turbo V8 pushing out 626 horses that move this leviatha
