The new Range Rover Sport SV can be bought with carbon fibre wheels. Huge, 23-inch carbon fibre wheels. What’s more, you can have enormous carbon ceramic brakes with 440mm discs and eight piston calipers. Add in an anti-roll system that we’ve previously seen on supercars and you have a Land Rover capable of tackling totally new territory for the brand.
Whilst cars like the Porsche 911 Dakar and Lamborghini Huracan Sterrato seek to broaden their sporty horizons on muddier terrain, the new Range Rover Sport SV is setting its sights on the smooth tarmac of race circuits. Everyone it seems is blurring the lines these days. On the international launch, Henry Catchpole drove the SV around the testing twists and turns of Portimao and was frankly astonished at what the Land Rover was capable of.
The 6D Dynamics system for the chassis keeps the SV incredibly flat, both laterally in the corners and longitudinally under acceleration and braking. It’s helped by a redesigned rear subframe and and a ride height that is 25mm lower than a standard Range Rover Sport when in its new SV mode. There is also a considerably quicker steering ratio and the option of new Michelin Pilot Sport 5 S summer tyres to help get the most from the chassis
By comparison with the chassis, the powertrain is a bit of a sideshow. The BMW-sourced 4.4-litre, mild hybrid, twin-turbo V8 sounds quite pleasing, but is very demure acoustically when compared to the old SVR’s 5-litre Supercharged V8. However, producing 635bhp and 553lb ft of torque it has plenty of propulsion to propel the SV to 62mph in just 3.8 seconds on all-season rubber or 3.6 seconds on the summer tyres.
An initial worldwide run of 2500 First Edition Range Rover Sport SVs - costing £185,000 or $180,300 each - has already sold out, so the concept is clearly a popular one. As a vehicle it might be a little hard to fathom initially, and plenty will ask what the point is, but the aspect of the SV that arguably makes it interesting is that it still has proper off-road capability. While a Ferrari Purosangue might wince at the thought of much more than a muddy car park, the Range Rover Sport SV has been through the same off-road tests as its Land Rover brethren. Even while wearing those carbon fibre rims.
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