Range Rover SV Coupe
Exciting news: Range Rover has revealed its latest money-making venture – a £240,000 three-door coupe. Time to plan that bank job...
The SV Coupe doesn’t look ginormous in the metal, but its proportions are aided by these optional 23in wheels – the first time such large rims have been fitted to a factory Range Rover
The original Range Rover is Genesis when it comes to posh-roaders, and in the beginning it was only a two-door, a car that’s since become a bit of a classic. It’s moved on a lot in the fve decades since, shifting upmarket in recent years to outfox the amount of rivals its success encouraged.
Yet Bentley, Lamborghini and now Rolls-Royce are only too happy to give it a hard time further up the food chain. Be under no illusion they’re all rivals, something Land Rover acknowledges with this recreation of the two-door Range Rover, the SV Coupe, which launches with a £240,000 price tag. Before options. Nigh on every one of its 999 buyers will make theirs bespoke to their own tastes, adding as much as £100,000 again. This could be a £340k Range Rover.
“As long as you give customers substance behind the price, they are happy to pay it,” says the director of Jaguar Land Rover’s Special Vehicle Operations division, Mark Stanton. “We’ve not had anybody complain about price.” It’s almost like he knew it was the frst thing we’d ask about. He even says some people have bought two, unable to choose between the fruits of their confgurator games. Bear in mind that the SV Coupe’s earliest customers are hand-picked Range Rover loyalists, too, so they’ll already have some fve-door versions at home. Probably several homes…
The reasons for its price tag – around £80,000 more than the SVAutobiography Dynamic it’s based upon, and three times the full-size Range Rover’s entry point – are numerous. Each one will be hand built at SVO’s headquarters, rather than the normal factory, plus it’s taken a reasonable amount of engineering to turn a fve-door SUV into a three-door. It was the frst Land Rover project pencilled in at SVO, conceived around the same time as the Jaguar F-Type-based Project 7, which was revealed in 2014.
“We’ve had to create the capability within SVO to make our own unique bodyshell,” says Stanton. “Everything we’ve shown so far – such as Project 7 – has been based on a standard body. Only the bonnet and lower tailgate aren’t changed from the standard Range Rover. It’s the frst car we’ve completely assembled ourselves too – it’s pushed the boundaries a bit.”
It’s a punchy-looking thing in the metal, a car Land Rover’s design director Gerry McGovern describes as “not for the shy”. It’s a smidge longer than a fve-door Range Rover, while 100mm has been taken from its height and added to its width. The front gills now sit in front of the doors, which, inevitably, are longer, almost entirely flling the wheelbase. Could be tricky in tight parking spaces, then, though you can spec them with power closing, like a Rolls, for when they’re just too far to reach.
While there are two seats and a reasonable amount of room in the back, we’re told it’s a “driver’s
Range Rover”. The only engine choice is the company’s 557bhp, 5.0-litre s’charged V8, which gives away only 10bhp to the Range Rover Sport SVR. That makes this the next quickest Rangey, with a 5.0secs 0–62mph time and 165mph vmax.
Was there not a temptation to ofer other engines? “Customers would only go for this one,” says Stanton. “They don’t want a plug-in hybrid. They want a top-range engine. If they need an EV or PHEV to get into a certain city, they’ll buy one as well. They just want the most powerful V8 in this car.”
Further hints it’s designed for driving lie in one of the optional interior colour schemes, which sees the front seats trimmed in a diferent, more brightly coloured leather to the rears, to highlight them as most important. Incidentally, the Queen’s Range Rover – designed to escort her around – has its seats trimmed other way around.
It’s the tip of a very large and opulent iceberg when it comes to choosing how to spec the car. The exterior can be two-tone, too, and while there are a bunch of standard colours and curated colour schemes, the people who buy cars like the SV Coupe turn up to dealerships with their favourite handkerchief, asking for its pattern to be recreated inside the car. SVO suspects very few of the 999 will be alike.
When interior door handles are described as a ‘blank canvas’ for your own unique engravings, and you’re ofered to chance to have your family coat of arms stitched into the headrests, you know Range Rover has moved on from that original two-door of 1970. Mind, there’s still a full suite of of-road systems beneath the skin and it’ll tow 3.5 tonnes. “It’s important we make vehicles that retain the essence of the brand,” says McGovern.
Oh, and no one’s worried about the challenges imposed by the likes of the Bentley Bentayga and Rolls-Royce Cullinan. “Will customers buy this instead of a Bentley? No, they’ll buy both,” says SVO boss Stanton. “Your magazine debates about which is best between the latest Ferrari or McLaren, but these guys don’t have that debate. They just buy both.”
He hopes some customers will have SVO’s headline Jaguar, Project 8 too. “Project 8 and the SV Coupe are a really interesting comparison,” he says. “Project 8 is all about the oily bits, the engine, the drivetrain, the aero. Here, it’s all about the body and materials. The same amount of work has gone into each car and they’re quite interesting contrasts for us – they push the boundaries in completely diferent directions.”
Body stiffness is the same as the regular Rangey, and it’s been tuned to deliver an identical driving experience. It’ll properly go off road, too. At £240k, very few will, we suspect