Range Rover Sport SV vs Ariel Nomad and Audi RS6 GT

These are not natural bedfellows, I get that. Rear-wheel drive versus four-wheel drive, fresh air versus glass, but mainly this: the Ariel is the car you can’t keep a lid on, the Range Rover is the one you dare not take the lid off. It might have 626bhp, but off-road the SV’s demeanour is the same as any other Land Rover product. Take it slow and steady, pick your line, tease your way. The Ariel is the dishevelled collie to the SV’s preening Afghan.

Photography: John Wycherley

Navarra’s rally-cum-4x4 area hasn’t seen action in a few months. Spiky vegetation has sprouted through the dry, cracked surface, while earthmoving operations have dammed the bottom end, turning it into a pale brown quagmire. It doesn’t look too threatening, so we head down there for a massive splash shot. Wrong move. The bed is that super fine powdery, tractionless silt. I dip the SV’s wheels in and the all-season tyres instantly clog and start to sink. I barely get it out again. All four wheels spin untidily, a wildebeest trying ineptly to back away from a crocodile.

Instead we park it on a plinth. Air suspension to ‘Off Road 2’ for maximum ground clearance, low range gears and terrain response engaged and it crawls effortlessly up a 35° slope without snagging itself anywhere. And then the Nomad does the same. No need to fiddle with the Terrain Response because it doesn’t have any, instead it’s an object lesson in reducing the weight. A third the mass of the SV, it puts far less pressure on the surface, far less demand into the tyres.

The SV goes on to prove itself elsewhere. It descends slopes, crosses ridges, indulges in a bit of cross axle articulation and even that fails to perturb the cross linked hydraulic dampers. But everywhere it goes, the Nomad easily follows. Yes, you’re busier in there, juggling clutch and direct steering, and filthier because water and dust makes for a fast application face mask, but this Nomad is every bit as capable as the last.

But somehow not as sweet on initial impressions. It’s the powertrain. This turbocharged Ford 2.3 drones on, and the gearbox – well, each shift is a little leaden and plodding and getting it into reverse is a two-handed job. I find myself yearning for the original Nomad’s more tuneful nat-asp Honda 2.4 and snickety six-speed gearbox.

But the chassis? Better than ever. I adored the original, found the flaws – savage steering kickback, gyroscopic pull of the wheels and comedic lean angles – merely served to give it charisma, to give you something to deal with so it wasn’t all too polished and perfect. This one corrects a lot of those ‘wrongs’. Mostly without harming the Nomad’s enthusiasm. It’s better controlled under squat and dive, more stable and composed, the chassis is stiffer, holds the wheels and suspension in place more rigidly so shocks don’t tremor through.

And even without a hydraulic handbrake, the Nomad still doubles as an open-flanked WRC car. Flick it into corners with a bit of brake, gas it and just go, let it charge around, flatten the vegetation, feel the wheels bounce around. Cutting loose on dirt: no finer feeling in the world as far as I’m concerned. And few finer cars to do it in. The Nomad is stupidly amusing out here, more together than it’s ever been. Going fast or slow. It’s mint off-road, it treads lightly, creeps where the SV stomps, can pick its way with ant-like precision, or yomp joyously.

The SV is heavily competent, will get you places it has no business being, but it doesn’t get high speed off-roading. Too big, too heavy, too complex and remote, it’s not responsive or nimble enough, it needs more room to play. To be honest that’s no surprise – I had hoped that the SV would have taken inspiration from Land Rover’s Bowler offshoot, but no. Not yet. Maybe not ever. It’s not what owners demand. They’d rather have carbon wheels.

Range Rover Sport SV vs Audi RS6 GT

Choose life. Choose a job. Choose a chunkily paid career. Choose a family. Choose a massive fuel-swigging six-figure ultratank to transport them at great speed, in comfort, outrunning sneering glances and drowning out derision with cackles of exhaust backfire. But why would you want to do a thing like that?

Because you’ve the thick end of £200,000 burning a hole in your cashmere pocket and you want the ultimate OTT expression of the family car. Question is, do you go for the V8 final boss in Audi’s legendary RS Avant lineage, or the most powerful Land Rover ever devised?

Half the allure of the mega-wagon is subtlety, a memo the Audi RS6 GT chewed up and spat out. There’s nothing discreet about it, adorned with box-section wheelarch vents, an elongated aerofoil and a grim wrap (yep, it’s not even paint) you have to have. There’s a choice of three – this is the most extrovert livery – and I’ll cease handwringing because it’s not put anybody off.

All 60 UK-bound cars are sold. So are the 600 other GTs Audi will produce worldwide. Despite the wrap. Despite the price. And despitest of all, not actually being that much different from the normal RS6. The V8 produces no extra power or torque. The GT boasts no new drive modes or beefier brakes. What it does have is a toolkit for its new manually adjustable dampers (replacing the air suspension), which run it 10mm lower to the ground.

Oh, how you’ll appreciate that when there are heavy appliances to lug to the tip. Perhaps if you’re prepared to fetch the axle stands and set about your shocks with what looks like a Homebase tin opener then there’s a world class chassis to be unlocked here. But we tested the GT as Audi supplied it and it felt... like an RS6.

Heavy, yet obedient. It turns. It snorts. It goes. It stops. It does what you ask with an icy cool no questions asked determination, but it never seems to particularly enjoy itself. You will for a while because of the sheer incongruity of doing Mach 2 in such a lavish yet utilitarian box, but it’s a difficult machine to impose yourself upon. It only really responds to being driven in the Audi handbook approved manner.

OK, that’s harsh. We hero worship RS6s after all. Audi’s ubiquitous 4.0 V8 has never sounded ruder. It’s the most brooding, malevolent looking car in the world, capable of time travel in all weathers, yet freakishly happy to settle down, behave. “Just be an A6 now please.” Even this extrovert run-out special is hugely versatile. Maybe that’s why we’re all a bit... whelmed. We saw the GTO concept with its aero wheels and roll cage and daydreamed about a pointless ‘GT3 RS6’. 

This is much more usable, but for the final ever V8 Audi wagon, we hoped Audi would release its careful-now handbrake. Just a notch.

The Range Rover SV, meanwhile, also costs an eye-watering heap of money, but at least it’s teeming with upgrades. Under the bonnet you get a BMW M5’s engine revelling in 626bhp. Its monolithic body is supported by diagonally linked hydraulic dampers which slacken off for a plush ride when you’re barrelling along in a straight line, and prop up 2,560kg when you’re not. Yep, just like a McLaren. But at twice the mass.

It works, to a point. Past that point, the results expose how absurd this type of vehicle is, how we’d probably have scramjets and teleportation machines if the hours and brain cells spent on ‘super SUV handling’ had been invested in something useful. The SV becomes a lurching bucking bronco as its entry speed exceeds the rate at which fluid can be redistributed around the system, and it spends more time on three wheels than a Reliant Robin.

Of course, you’ll never suffer with this on the road, where the prodigious power at your disposal will quickly make up for any cornering speed shortfall. But I wonder if Land Rover has misread the room here. The square jawed old SVR found an audience because it was silly. Hot hatch vibes in the royal family’s car. Making the new one look and sound demure and mindful doesn’t ring true. This is a car in which the paddleshifters glow red when you select ‘SV’ mode. A car which will give you an audio-sensual massage while pulling 1.2g, six feet in the air.

But it’s had a characterectomy, and the handling isn’t as clever as the car thinks it is. Everyone clambers down from it saying the same – faint praise with a ‘for an SUV’ caveat. It’s clearly a more rounded daily driver than the old SVR, but so is a Cayenne GTS. For £70,000 less. Here then, we have two slightly murky cars. They should be the answer to everything, but neither hits the spot as accurately as it might have for the money.

Since I started with a gratuitously butchered 1990s film quote, I’ll end on one too. These cars are staggering engineering achievements, but the engineers were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should.