Range Rover Sport HST
Powered by new inline six
The new Range Rover Sport HST gives us our first taste of a key component of Jaguar Land Rover’s developing engine portfolio: the first inline six-cylinder engine of the Ingenium family.
The new P400 unit is just under 3.0 litres by volume and uses twinscroll turbocharging, electric supercharging and mild-hybrid electric assistance to make 396bhp and 406lb ft. It replaces the old 3.0 supercharged V6 and slots into the line-up just below the P400e plug-in hybrid on price but slightly above it on performance. More ordinary trim levels are available, but Land Rover is marking the engine’s arrival with a special derivative called HST.
First impressions are all about refinement. Gaydon has gone to great lengths to make the P400 the smoothest and most discreet engine
available in the car at any price, by fitting near-silent timing chains and the like. The HST starts and runs very quietly in town and shifts gear almost imperceptibly on a steady throttle. There’s a slightly slurred shift quality, and an occasional gentle surge of torque on upshifts, but almost nothing else to mark each gear as it engages.
Extend the revs in manual mode and, even in a 2.2-tonne car, the engine is responsive, flexible and potent; in something half a tonne lighter, it’d be ripe for a sporting application – assuming a more positive and consistent shift quality could be found. Power delivery is linear, with the engine pulling beyond 6000rpm as freely as it does from 3000-4000rpm, and audible character is great: smooth and reserved at low speeds and quite tuneful through the higher reaches.
I’d probably avoid the more garish touches and trim materials, and the bigger wheels, of HST trim. Our test car had optional 22in rims, and the low-speed ride definitely suffers for them. Given how refined this car is otherwise, that shortfall jars a little.
The P400 engine suits the Range Rover Sport very well, proffering much of the accessible torque and easy drivability of the multi-cylinder diesels with a refinement and richness to compare to a V8 petrol. Most buyers should probably stick with an SDV6, but for those urbanites who don’t fancy the plug-in hybrid, you can well imagine that this will become a go-to engine.