The Sport Of Kings
Forget the shabby chic vibe, the hybrid Range Rover Sport is tasteful luxe, writes
There was a time, and it’s not all that long ago, when Range Rovers were the almost sole preserve of the landed gentry. The car wasn’t a Range Rover at all unless it looked like a well-seasoned Barbour jacket, while inside the floor had to be littered with betting slips, and the cargo area smelled of damp spaniel.
Then along came a new kind of Range Rover, and a new kind of Range Rover buyer. Shabby chic went out the window, and in came tasteful luxe, not bling, in the Sport iteration. Cabins that used to look like the boot room in a country manor now look more like the foyer of a boutique hotel.
Starting a car review with a description of the interior always feels like a bit of a cop-out, but since this Range Rover Sport plug-in hybrid actually is nicer than my house, I’m going to make an exception. The semi-aniline leather upholstery (I had to look up ‘aniline’, which means the leather is dyed through, rather than just on the surface) is in contrasting shades of Light Cloud, and Ebony.
The front seats have 20-way electronic adjustment, and come with heating for winter, and ventilation for summer. The key word, front and back, is comfort, on a scale few brands attain with such ease and, in this colour scheme, the cabin feels cool. Airy too, thanks to a massive panoramic sunroof that somehow seems to make even the greyest day tolerable.
There’s plenty of storage space in the door pockets and central console, and especially in the back, where you’ll be able to accommodate a whopping 647 litres of cargo. The dogs will thank you for it, but you’d probably want to hose them down first.
Of course, the cosmetic appeal doesn’t mean the car has lost its full-on Range Rover chops. It’s comfortable with a wading depth of 900mm, and there are seven terrain modes, for the like of sand, snow, mud ruts, and so on, with power sent to individual wheels for maximum traction to get you out of the stickiest situations.
At night, the digital LED headlights would illuminate Cork from Dublin, without ever blinding anyone traveling in the opposite direction, thanks to the auto dimming function. Day or night, you can be sure of calm, because the sound system has active noise cancelling that filters out environmental noise. The hush is perceptible.
As for the drive itself, this might be a big car, but the combined 3.0-litre petrol engine and motor deliver 454hp, and will shoot you from 0-100kph in a very respectable 5.5 seconds. On every road surface I found it not only solid but reassuringly so.
If you want to charge the battery while you’re out and about, it will take about an hour, and a full charge covers 96km electric range in real world conditions. Inside there is a large 13.1inch infotainment touchscreen, which is less fiddly than many I’ve used on other cars.
Where once the radio progamme of choice might have been The Archers, the owner of this car is much more likely to Spotifying his or her way cross country with a soundtrack that’s much more chilled, just like the Range Rover Sport itself.
As for the €134,320 price tag, well, yes, you’ll need to be a little chilled about that too. Like a good sport.