There has been a recent spur of Performance SUV launches in India. Though the words performance and SUV don’t go hand in hand generally, these machines have made us think otherwise. Coming to what we have here – The Range Rover Sport SVR. It is the first product to come out of Jaguar Land Rover’s Special Vehicle Operations (SVO) division. SVO is the equivalent of Mercedes’ AMG and BMW’s M divisions. The Range Rover Sport always had a big supercharged V8 but has the SVO treatment made it something special? The Range Rover Sport SVR clocked a lap time of 8 minutes 14 seconds around the holy grail of test tracks, the Nurburgring, making it the fastest SUV around the track that time, so there has to be something about it. Let’s find out.
First off the SVR looks similar to the standard Range Rover Sport, but at once, you can make out that this one comes with more muscle. There are darkened headlamps along with a polished black honeycomb grille. The aggressively styled front bumper features a large air dam in the centre with a prominent SVR badge and large air ducts on either side. The bonnet gets the RANGE ROVER lettering in black. There are air vents on the bonnet and the front wings, again finished in black. The side profile remains unchanged. The rear features tail lamps with LED elements along with a roof spoiler. The RANGE ROVER lettering on the boot is also in black. The rear bumper comes with a rear diffuser and sexy quad exhaust pipes. The large 21 inch alloy wheels with blue Brembo callipers look stunning. And what a paint shade that Estoril Blue is. It brings out the character of the Range Rover Sport SVR easily. If it is an SVR, this is the colour to get it in. Period. I guess owners of SVRs in Mumbai are nodding their heads in agreement if they are reading this.
The cabin of a Range Rover is always a special place to be in and the SVR is no different. The cabin is airy and is very well put together. The quality of materials used is top notch including things like the window switches and door lock levers. It is these small details that make a Range Rover a Range Rover. The test car came with tan and black dual tone leather upholstery with black Alcantara for the roof. The steering wheel also gets two tone leather treatment and fit and finish of the steering mounted controls is fantastic. The steering gets electric adjust for reach and rake. The instrument cluster is a TFT screen with clean graphics and is very easy to read. The large wide centre console has carbon fibre trim and houses the touch screen for the infotainment system and the climate control switches. The infotainment system is still the old one and feels very dated in comparison to competition. It’s high time the updated system made its way into the big Rangie. The Range Rover Sport SVR comes with an F-Type style gear lever, unlike the round dial we are used to seeing in Jaguar and Land Rover models. Below the gear lever are the controls for the Terrain Response and the button to give you an eargasm… the exhaust button. The power window and mirror adjust switches are placed at a higher level and it takes time getting used to. The rear gets AC vents mounted in the roof, four of them. These are in addition to the ones located in the rear part of the centre console. The touch operated reading lamps are very sensitive and you end up turning them on while adjusting the AC vents. These could have been mounted a little away from the vents. The four zone climate control cooled the cabin brilliantly with the outside temperature showing 42 degrees on the instrument cluster. There is 10 colour mood lighting too that can be configured through the infotainment system. The large panoramic roof is operated in two stages via a couple of switches upfront. The 825 W Meridian Surround Sound System with 19 speakers on the SVR will please the audiophiles. It comes with USB / Ipod and Bluetooth connectivity.
The Range Rover Sport SVR comes with sport leather seats just like the ones seen in the F-Type. They go with the sporty character of the SVR perfectly. They get electric adjust with memory setting as well. The rear seats are crafted to look similar to the front seats. The back rest can also be reclined for better comfort. Standard boot space in the SVR stands at 784 litres, which goes up to 1,761 litres once you fold down the second row of seats.
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