Range Rover Sport SVR
Loud, crass, excellent
SERIOUSLY VULGAR RENDITION, in case you’re wondering. Especially presented in Madagascar Orange which, like a queasy orangutan on an Alton Towers rollercoaster, changes hue when glimpsed from different angles.
This Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Not Remotely Streamline Baby boasts just the one exterior detail of any artfulness whatsoever: the junction between paint and exposed mat on Land Rover’s first carbonfibre bonnet (a weight saving of 25kg) is wonderfully, obsessively seamless. Less subtle details are easier to hunt down; a choice example being the Starship Trooper rank insignia masquerading as engine bay vents aft of the front wheels.
On board, mercifully, all is much easier to like. The crisp, ruthlessly padded architecture is dominated by the two 10-inch screens of a Touch Pro Duo infotainment system hatched in the Velar and now range-wide. ‘Pro’ is a useful word in this context, optimistically distancing the system as far as possible from its woefully tardy predecessor. Indeed, an image of George Gilbert Scott’s phone box is about the only relic to survive the transition to a far faster and more graphically pleasing offering which, like so many current touchscreens, is best left on to disguise the symphony of fingertip smears that quickly accrue.
But the driver’s binnacle centre screen requires an ecstasy of steeringwheel-switchgear fumbling to manipulate. When you do finally find the presentation you require, a simple confirmatory stab is insufficient; you must also then painstakingly back-track through the menu to where you started before activation occurs. One slip and – pausing only for your first glimpse at the road ahead since yesterday evening – you must start again.
Best of all, and saving 30kg, are bespoke front seats. Whereas the seats of the phull-phat Range Rover offer all the lateral hold of a previously owned sherry trifle, those of the SVR make a far more decent fist of actually maintaining an appropriately head-on relationship between driver and helm.
And this is a Good Thing because – although it’s brazen as bare legs on a Newcastle night out in February and vulgar as streaky fake tan – the Sport SVR is a gigglingly, guineaa-minute enthrallingly quick bungalow, and embarrassingly loud.
As before, JLR’s 5.0-litre supercharged V8 is pressed into service, but power has been boosted by 25bhp to 567bhp, and torque by 14lb ft to 516lb ft. This shoves the Sport SVR to 62mph in 4.5 seconds, and on into a wall of air that becomes solid enough to halt proceedings at 174mph. It’s delivered via an eight-speed automatic transmission with flappy paddles (and a conventional gearknob to make manual access easier) and all-wheel drive.
Bury the throttle, and the SVR leans back on its haunches like a Riva Aquarama as the screws bite (albeit without the yacht’s beauty), and blares off the line with absurd alacrity and a not inconsiderable racket in the finest V8 tradition.
Gearchanges – both automatically and manual selected – are seamless, but the sudden, cacophonous appearance of the 7th Cavalry firing from the saddle, most notably on downchanges, is hardly conducive to the imperceptible swapping of cogs.
The SVR rides on air springs, adaptive dampers and active anti-rolls bars both fore and aft, the settings of which have been ministered unto with a view to shackling pitch under throttle and braking (almost), and to optimising the turn-in, body control and cornering grip of 2310 bags of sugar. This makes for a decidedly firm straight-line ride, but it’s never uncomfortable.
This, allied to meaty steering, allows this monstrosity to be hustled down a sweeping A-road at a fair old lick. It all does feel rather more like grip than handling, however, and you need to be smooth with your inputs.
Clearly not to everyone’s taste, but you can see why some would happily cough up over £100,000 for something so vulgar, so overtly shouty and attention seeking, so swanky on board, so extraordinarily capable off-road, so hilariously loud, and, above all, so absurdly, gloriously, thrillingly rapid.