Features
Sports personality
Not a year for shy, retiring SUVs, was it? So here's our award winner, a Land Rover that thinks it's a BMW
First impressions can be impossible to overcome and this is how the Range Rover Sport remains in my head.
A flat, West Midlands morning, rain too, coming in close to the horizontal, and a Sport clocking up circles, never less, and often more, than 45 degrees to the direction of travel. Round and round it goes, two-point- five tall tonnes of it, illuminating the tangent, messing with the physics. A BLOODY RANGE ROVER, FOR CHRISAKES.
It can do it, the Range Rover Sport. Maybe not with the sheer force of the Cayenne nor the precision of the X5, but it can do it (and a whole, whole lot more besides that the Germans can't manage even in their muckiest dreams - it says 'Land Rover' there on the tailgate, don't forget).
It's all electronics and sheer chassis strength, of course. That, and the instinctive nous of Mike Cross (one of Top Gear magazine's Men of the Year).
'Land Rover has only ever made great SUVs, one of which now goes a lot like a BMW or a Porsche'
That's Mike, crossed-up in the picture, a Land Rover fleece over his corporate blue chambray shirt, the Jaguar logo close to his heart.
Cross has instigated a paradigm shift at Land Rover, a place where finesse, refinement and the ability to drive at 45 degrees to the left or right of the direction of travel have always meant less than balls, brute strength and the ability to drive at 45 degrees to the horizon.
Cross's presence can be felt in the Discovery 3's controlled, comfortable ride and can-this-really-be-a-Land-Rover steering. And Cross is really there in the Range Rover Sport's controlled, slightly less compliant ride, and whoa-whoa-whoaaaaaahow-did-it-do-that body control.
The Supercharged 385bhp Range Rover Sport, the only choice for Top Gear magazine's SUV of 2005, then. BMW and Porsche make world
beatingly great sports cars, one or two of which look a bit like SUVs. Land Rover has only ever made great SUVs, one of which now goes a lot like a BMW or a Porsche, as you can see.
Michael Harvey
Read Range Rover Sport Car Review
Land Rover Range Rover Sport road tests
Land Rover Range Rover Sport TDV8 HSE - January 10, 2007
Land Rover Range Rover Sport 2.7 TDV6 - November 14, 2005
Bookmark with:
What are these?