“The fastest and most dynamic Land Rover yet”, is how Nick Rogers, the Vehicle Line Director sums up the new Range Rover Sport. Glenn Brooks wouldn’t disagree, after two days’ driving on all manner of surfaces.
Most of us loved the looks of the old Range Rover Sport, particularly from the front, but ever since the new Range Rover arrived six months ago, the angular styling of the eight year old RRS has looked a bit dated.
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The only thing I disliked about the outgoing model was how squishy it could be for rear passengers so that was the first thing I wanted to know about the new one – does the longer wheelbase mean better legroom? It certainly does. That’s despite the big change to packaging over the old shape car – if you forgo a full-sized spare tyre, this is now a 5+2 seats vehicle, whereas RRS generation one was strictly a (cosy) five-seater.
During the media preview launch event, writers were encouraged to push the new model as hard as they could and the roads selected were just about unimproveable in my experience. Starting out from Cheltenham in the Cotswolds, we ventured across and up into rural Wales, with one especially memorable long section of gravel on Army land. The vehicle’s rear-drive bias was easily felt on the loose stones but not once did this huge SUV feel top-heavy, despite all that thick glass.
There was wading through water and thick mud within the grounds of Eastnor Castle, one of Land Rover’s traditional test facilities, plus of course lots and lots of high-speed miles on a variety of motorways and A-roads.
It’s tricky to find nasty things to say about the new Sport as you can tell they really did take a long, hard look at what needed changing. The weight is the big difference, the new aluminium body being 300 kilos lighter than the combined body and chassis frame of the old car. As I have noted previously, this is still a two tonnes+ vehicle but when the promised four-cylinder versions arrive, these will slip in under 2,000kg.
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By GlobalDataNick Rogers, who I quoted above, also told me that he believes the new vehicle possesses “the broadest range of capability of any Land Rover product ever”. But hold on, what about the Range Rover? Ah yes, glad you asked. The thinking is that the RR, which is priced quite a bit higher than the Sport, is the last word in Land Rover luxury as well as off-roading abilities but the L494 series Sport lives up to its name far more than the old L320 model did.
Even after eight years of production, L320 was still selling strongly, with volume higher than ever in its last full year. Over 450,000 have found owners since 2005. Not bad when you recall just how hard sales of luxury vehicle were hit by the downturn which gripped the US and the UK following the banking collapses of 2008.
You could argue that the BMW X5 was the first SUV to appeal to enthusiast drivers, but the Range Rover part of the model name gave the RRS a certain cachet which seemed to have instant appeal in so many markets. Here, RRS gen 1 can be seen sniffily by some as a kind of Premier League footballer’s chariot. Those guys now seem more interested in fully optioned and accessorised versions of the Range Rover Autobiography – you can easily spec one up to over GBP100,000, whereas the new Sport starts at just over fifty thousand and reaches a touch over eighty thousand for the 5.0-litre Autobiography.
Whereas the old RRS was developed from the third generation Range Rover (L322), the new one was engineered in paraellel with the RR4 (L405). The idea behind this, claims Nick Rogers, was “so that the differences could be built in”. Despite the common ‘PLA’ platform and shared powertrains, 75% of the Sport’s parts are said to be bespoke, with the suspension system singled out by Rogers as one example. This uses aluminium components and is fully-independent, with double-wishbones at the front and a multi-link layout for the rear.
Wheel-travel is quoted as 260mm front and 272mm rear, with articulation of 546mm. Maximum ground clearance rises to 278mm (up 51mm over the old RRS) and the standard air suspension automatically varies between two ride heights. There’s up to 115mm of regular movement, from the lowest setting (10mm lower at 50mm for easier entry and exit) to the standard off-road height. If needs be, an automatic extension, triggered by sensors, and a manually-selected extension, will lift the vehicle by 35mm, giving a total movement range of 185mm.
It isn’t just the suspension that offers such sophistication, you even now get a choice of two full-time 4WD systems. The first provides a two-speed transfer case with low-range option. This is for the most demanding off-road conditions and means a front-rear 50/50 percent default torque split, and 100% locking capability.
Drivers who don’t intend to take their vehicle into extreme off-roading conditions will prefer the second system, which also benefits from an 18kg weight saving. There is a single-speed transfer case with a Torsen differential, which automatically distributes torque to the axle with most grip. The default front-rear torque split of 42/58 percent is designed to provide a rear-wheel drive bias for, as Land Rover terms it, ‘optimum driving dynamics’.
Something else I must mention is torque vectoring – this is the first Land Rover to have that – which means using the braking system to imitate the effect of a torque vectoring diff, with the benefit being better grip and steering with less understeer. Does it work? It does – the Sport is up there with the Porsche Cayenne. The new (F15) BMW X5 will have a tough time improving on the roadholding displayed by each of these rivals.
An option that is expected to prove popular is a Dynamic mode for the standard ZF 8HP70 eight-speed automatic transmission. Here’s Land Rover’s chief engineer Mike Cross defining what it does: “It delivers a big reduction in body roll, the dampers are tightened, gear changes are faster, steering efforts are changed and the throttle mapping is adjusted”. He sums up the benefits thus: “On the right road, and in the right circumstances, the car transforms into a more immediate, more responsive sports SUV”.
Mike Cross is clearly proud of what his team has achieved with the new model and there’s no doubt about it – you can drive this big SUV like a sports car should that be your wish. The supercharged 5.0-litre V8 version will charge to 100km/h in exactly five seconds – a full second faster than the old model – and even better, it goes round corners in a way that neither an L320 or an E70 X5 can. Yes, it leans a just a little, but it’s never unsettling.
There can be a price to pay for all that hard charging. I saw an average of 16.4mpg on the digital readout of the supercharged petrol car, which included off-roading and a top speed attempt on a runway, in addition to lots and lots of A-road driving. I didn’t clock what another vehicle averaged, this time a 3.0-litre V6 diesel, but I would imagine you’d be looking at a realistic day to day figure in the high twenties to low thirties, which isn’t bad compared to the competition.
There’s another diesel to come in early 2014, the SDV8. That’s Land Rover-speak for the Ford-built 4,367cc V8 and it wasn’t available on the press launch. The SDV8’s numbers are 250kW/339PS with 700Nm of torque – that’s 75Nm more than even the supercharged 5.0-litre petrol V8. How much fun will that one be on gravel roads?
No-one at JLR will say much about the forthcoming family of four-cylinder petrol and diesel engines, though back in May, BorgWarner identified itself as the supplier of turbochargers. I’ve heard this family referred to as ‘AJ200’ and ‘Hotfire’ but what the official name is, we’ll just have to wait and see. Not that the four-cylinder petrol engine for the RRS will be one of these – no, it will be the same Si4-GTDi that goes into the Freelander. This is supplied by Ford of Europe and is a variant of the turbocharged, direct injection 240PS 2.0 EcoBoost.
How about a four-cylinder diesel Sport? Again, no-one is saying anything so for the moment, it’s a guess about whether we’ll see Ford and PSA’s 2.2 in the RRS, and/or JLR’s own I4 diesel to come in a few years’ time. There are both 150PS SD4 and 190PS TD4 versions of the Ford/PSA unit in the existing Freelander, so considering that a loaded example weighs in at 1,800kg, a tweaked TD4 would probably offer perfectly decent power and economy in the Range Rover Sport.
What I don’t have to speculate about is a diesel-electric Range Rover Sport. This will be unveiled at the Frankfurt IAA in September but already we know that its official CO2 average will be 169g/km and the 0-60mph time is “sub 7 seconds”, according to Land Rover. How does that compare to the non-hybrid V6 diesel? Equivalent numbers for the 258PS version are 194g/km and 7.1 seconds, or 199g/km and 6.8 seconds for the 292PS version of the same unit.
The new Sport is reaching UK dealerships now. The timing is perfect, as it will help build on the recently announced half year sales rise of 11% to 172,554 vehicle deliveries for the brand, globally. Even in June, when the RRS was on run-out, sales rose by 2%. No prizes for guessing what effect this new model is going to have in the coming months, especially as US sales commence very soon for the 2014 model year. Might L494 sales top an eventual half million, given the same eight-year lifecycle as the outgoing L320? ‘Easily’ would be my answer.
