Range Rover SV-Autobiography LWB

With so many customers demanding the biggest and best Range Rover on sale, company bosses have pulled out the stops for this no-holds-barred luxury SUV. You can’t argue with its extravagant opulence, and very little this side of a Rolls Royce can offer quite so much undisputed luxury. If money is no object, this new Range Rover SV-Autobiography is – for now – the most luxurious SUV on sale.

Range Rover customers aren’t strangers to personalisation. Their cars come with inventories longer than the car itself, and six-figure list prices are more common than toast and butter for breakfast.

The people at Land Rover are wise to this, and as a result have tasked their Special Vehicle Operations (SVO) department with creating the biggest and best Range Rover to date.

Quite the car it is, too. Depending on the engine, this SV-A costs around £50,000 more than the existing Autobiography. It’s an every-option-ticked leather and luxury tech fest with emphasis on the passenger, rather than the driver. Available in standard and long-wheelbase variants, it’s the latter we tried here.

From the outside, you’ll need a keen eye to separate this from the standard Autobiography. There’s some Graphite lettering and a special SV-Autobiography badge at the back, but aside from the £9,000 duo tone paint (one of just three factory-fit options), it’s pretty much as you’d expect.

It’s inside where the magic happens. You’ll find high-quality knurled metal throughout – on the buttons, switchgear and pedals, while the same effect is found on the key fob, rear coat hooks and gear selector, too. Four-zone climate control is standard, as is the configurable interior mood lighting and luxury carpet mats with contrast stitching.

All the touchpoints up front are engineered with the usual Range Rover precision, with the laser heads-up display fitted on all models. The dashboard is covered in high-quality leather, while glossy wood veneers give it further upmarket feel.

But most SV-Autobiography customers will buy this car not to drive, but to be driven in. The long-wheelbase version offers impressive legroom in the rear, with electrically operated aeroplane-style seats complete with calf rest on the passenger side. Push the front seat all the way forward and there’s enough room to recline, or you can sit up and turn the car into a mobile office.

The bulky but exquisitely-finished centre console sits in place of the middle seat and features everything from lap tables to a Champagne chiller and Autobiography-branded glasses.

Behind the rear seats, the LWB car gets the same 550-litre boot as its lesser siblings, albeit decked with a unique sliding floor. It’s covered in more beautifully crafted wood veneer and is actually remarkably functional – pulling out to allow easy removal of items at the back of the boot.

But that’s not all. The SV-A’s most absurd feature is the ‘Event-Style Seats’, which fold out from the luggage compartment and sit on the lower tailgate. They cost £5,500, and are perfect for watching the rowers at Henley Regatta, apparently.

Like most Range Rovers, this SV-A has been engineered first and foremost for comfort. Even on the huge 21-inch alloy wheels (22s are a no-cost option), the ride was cosseting and uninterrupted. If you plan to spend more time driving, the standard-wheelbase car is firmer and more fun.

Under the bonnet of our test car sat the tried and tested 4.4-litre TDV8 diesel. It’s the cheapest long-wheelbase SV-Autobiography you can buy, and sits beneath both the Hybrid and the Supercharged V8. The latter costs an additional £8,600 but comes with the uprated 542bhp engine from the Range Rover Sport SVR. It’s not as brash in the SV-A, but it’ll still do 0-62mph in 5.5 seconds.

Yet while many who’re after the ultimate Range Rover will also want the ultimate engine the smooth diesel is more than up to the job. It’s torquey yet refined, and will still sprint to 62mph in an adequate 7.2 seconds. It’ll build speed quickly and efficiently, and has enough in reserve for overtaking too.

Key specs

• Price: £156,000
• Engine: 4.4-litre V8 diesel
• Power/torque: 334bhp/740Nm
• Transmission: Eight-speed auto, four-wheel drive
• 0-62mph: 7.2 seconds
• Top speed: 135mph
• Economy/CO2: 33.6mpg/219g/km

New Range Rover Autobiography 2016

 

The formula has been tweaked slightly, but the product remains the same: the 2016 Range Rover is still an incredible luxury off-roader.

 

Imperious refinement, imposing styling and silky performance mean the 2016MY Range Rover is still the SUV benchmark. Land Rover has added even more tech to its flagship for this new 2016 car to help improve practicality as well as connectivity, so the big Rangie can keep pace with more modern rivals – it does that easily, out-classing its off-roader competition and matching high-end luxury saloons.

Honing a recipe like the Range Rover’s is more difficult than it might seem, but with each successive version Land Rover has got it right, delivering luxury, performance, quality and a super strong brand image to its exacting clientele – and with this 2016 Model Year Range Rover it’s done it once again.

Inside this Autobiography TDV6 Land Rover has added a new Surround Camera System with improved graphics to help when manoeuvring the Rangie’s vast bulk, and given this is a Land Rover, it helps avoid obstacles off-road, too. 

There’s also a new water jet for the rear view camera to keep the lens clean, while this 2016MY car now gets a Gesture Tailgate as standard, so with a swipe of your foot beneath the bumper, you can open the practical split tailgate hands-free.

On top of this, the car’s air suspension system now automatically drops to its lowest ‘Access Height’ when parked to make entry and exit easier.

This new Range Rover also gets Land Rover’s InControl technology to improve connectivity. Among other things, it allows owners to locate their car, check its fuel level and even lock and unlock the doors remotely via an app.

This has added to the multimedia system’s slick appearance. However, dig a bit deeper and you’ll find that the graphics still aren’t quite as hi-resolution as in arguably its main rival, the Mercedes S-Class, while the touchscreen’s response can be a bit sluggish.

With prices starting from £91,550 for this Autobiography TDV6 model, it’s not cheap, but you really don’t need any more than the 254bhp 3.0-litre twin-turbo diesel has to offer, as the creamy power delivery and effortless eight-speed automatic gearbox mean you can make relaxing progress.

There’s still an adequate turn of pace on offer from this 2,215kg luxury off-roader though, as the 0-60mph sprint takes 7.4 seconds, and with 600Nm of torque on tap from 2,000rpm it’s a sublime cruiser, too. Returning 40.9mpg and emitting 182g/km of CO2 according to Land Rover, despite its size it’s not quite as thirsty as you might think.

With lots of low-down urgency it’s easy to make swift, stress-free progress, helped by the soft suspension setup. The chassis absorbs bad roads and uneven terrain with ease, isolating the cabin from the road and filtering out any nasty vibrations.

All that weight and the soft air suspension results in some inevitable body movement, while big bumps do occasionally hit harder when the car is loaded up in a corner – but the ride and impressive refinement, thanks to features such as double-glazed windows, mean there are still very few ways to travel in more comfort than in a Range Rover.

Space inside the beautifully built cabin is excellent, and rear seat passengers get individual controls to adjust their heated seats. In the front there’s a massage function for the heated and vented seats, too, helping to keep you fresh when you reach your destination.

On top of this xenon headlights, four-zone climate control, a digital TV, adaptive cruise with emergency braking, a powerful Meridian hi-fi, keyless entry, DAB, Bluetooth, sat-nav, and that new Surround Camera system featuring towing assist, so the Range Rover can tow up to 3,500kg.

It comes well kitted out as you’d expect, and a 909-litre boot ensures there are no questions when it comes to practicality. However, options can be costly, and £1,000 for a head-up display seems steep.

There might not be quite as much tech inside as the latest S-Class either, but with its commanding driving position giving a great view ahead, the big SUV offers something subtly different to a high-end saloon on the road.

And then there’s its performance off it. With the Terrain Response 2 system optimising driving modes depending on the surface and air suspension to raise the ride height, even on regular road tyres the Range Rover’s performance on the loose is simply sublime. The ride comes into its own on rough terrain, and the landscapes it can conquer are scarcely believable.  

Key specs

• Price: £91,550
• Engine: 3.0-litre V6 turbodiesel
• Power/torque: 254bhp/600Nm
• Transmission: Eight-speed auto, four-wheel drive
• 0-60mph/top speed: 7.4 secs/130mph
• Economy/CO2: 40.9mpg/182g/km

Range Rover Sport SVR 2015

The Range Rover Sport SVR is a 542bhp luxury SUV that points the brand in a new high performance direction.

The new Range Rover Sport SVR is some car. It deserves all the success it will undoubtedly achieve in the short term, and in the longer term sets the tone for a whole new way of doing things at the top of JLR. AMG & Co, you have been warned.

The car you are looking at represents a new era for Jaguar Land Rover. It’s called the Range Rover Sport SVR and is merely the first wave amongst a small tsunami of new high performance Jaguars and Land Rovers that will appear over the next few years.

In time, the SVR treatment will be applied much like the RS badge has been at Jaguar, but more liberally, right across the JLR range. Expect an SVR versions of the Evoque surely, plus SVR versions of the new Jaguar XE saloon plus the next XF. And so the list will go on.

For the time being, though, the Range Rover Sport SVR is flying the flag for the new range of high performance JLR products, and fly it in some style it most certainly does. This is a Range Rover that can hit its limited top speed of 162 mph in three of its available eight forward gears (5th, 6th and seventh) having muscled its way to 62mph in a scant 4.7sec en route.

It’s also a car capable of lapping the Nurburgring in a vaguely hilarious 8min 14sec and is, claim its engineers, between 10-15% sharper dynamically everywhere compared with the already tidy Range Rover Sport.

The main areas of development over the standard Sport model centre around the supercharged V8 engine (which now produces a thumping 542bhp and 502b ft of torque), the chassis, the brakes, the interior and the suspension.

The brakes are no bigger than normal but the way in which they are cooled has been significantly improved so that fade, says Range Rover, simply isn’t an issue, not even when lapping the Nurburgring.

Inside, you can pick the SVR Range Rover Sport over its lesser brethren mainly through its bespoke new seats, which are much more heavily sculpted than before, and because of its new machined metal door and dash inserts. In the back there are two more sculpted seats, with an occasional third extra seatbelt available for anyone unlucky enough to be sat in the middle.

The steering and suspension have also been tuned to provide crisper, sharper responses than in the regular Sport model, with alterations to the software of the Dynamic Drive system making the SVR feel much more focused on the road, says Range Rover.

And then there’s the new exhaust system, which has again been tuned to deliver an even naughtier noise than you’ll hear in any current Jaguar, reckons Range Rover. Sometimes claims like that make you wonder, but in this case the sound backs up the claim; the SVR Range Rover Sport emits a harder edged bark pretty much everywhere in the rev range, but never more so than under full throttle at over 3700rpm, with its baffles opened wide so that it can be heard from many hundreds of yards away. And if you don’t want to wake the neighbourhood every time you fire up your SVR, you can simply press a button to keep the exhausts quieter and more civilised. 

On the road the SVR feels instantly more alive but also much more controlled than the regular models. Roll stiffness is approximately 20% up over the regular Sport, but it’s the steering’s extra feel and response that are most noticeable to begin with. Despite weighing only 40kg less than the standard version, the SVR feels immediately more nimble on its feet as a result.

And boy does it go when you put your foot down. Experiencing this kind of acceleration in a car this big, and which still boasts such a majestic driving position, feels ever so slightly surreal to begin with. In any of its drive modes the SVR feels faster than it has any right to considering it weighs as much as it does (2,335kg). In Dynamic mode, however, with the exhausts on full noise and the throttle and gearshift software in their most aggressive settings, it feels like a proper wild animal in a straight line.

Which is why it’s even more surprising to discover that it now has the cornering composure and braking power to match such thundering performance. It even handles pretty crisply for something so vast, with much more precision on turn in compared with the standard RR and, seemingly, twice as much bite from its enormous – but optional – new 22in Continental tyres. The standard wheels and tyre sizes are 21s but, so far, Range Rover is finding that over 80% of orders are being placed for cars with the new 22in wheels. Which is understandable given how good the thing looks on 22s, even if the ride does suffer a touch during the upgrade.

Key specs

• Price: £93,450
• Engine: 5.0-litre V8, supercharged
• Transmission: 8-speed auto, four wheel drive
• Power: 542bhp
• 0-62mph/top speed: 4.7s/162mph
• Economy/CO2: 22.1mpg/298/km
• On sale: Now

Range Rover Sport

The latest Range Rover Sport is more luxurious, more efficient and better to drive than ever before.

The latest Range Rover Sport fits between the compact Range Rover Evoque SUV, and Land Rover’s full-blown Range Rover flagship. Designed to combine the British brand’s trademark comfort, luxury and off-road ability with a racier, more involving driving experience, the Range Rover Sport is a direct rival for the Porsche Cayenne, BMW X5 and Mercedes M-Class.

The Range Rover Sport also has a neat trick up its sleeve in the form of an optional seven-seat layout. The third row of seats unfolds from the boot floor and helps give the upmarket off-roader genuine MPV versatility. This practicality doesn’t come at the expense of comfort and luxury, though, because the Sport’s interior feels every bit as upmarket and cosseting as the flagship Range Rover’s

In an effort to make the new Range Rover Sport feel more agile, Land Rover has ditched the old car’s hefty steel chassis in favour a lightweight steel monocoque. In combination with new active anti-roll bar technology and adaptive dampers it helps provide the latest Range Rover Sport with surprisingly nimble handling.

Yet none of this on road composure comes at the expense of the Range Rover Sport’s legendary off-road prowess. Not only does the Sport get Land Rover’s Terrain Response, which automatically adjusts the traction control, gearbox and throttle for maximum traction, it also gets standard air suspension. This addition allows you to raise the ride height to clear large obstacles, with the additional benefit of a pillow soft ride on the road.

The Range Rover Sport’s weight reduction also helps boost, despite using the same line-up of engines and the old car. Buyers choose from two versions of the 3.0-litre V6 diesel engine, a 4.4-litre V8 diesel and a pair of 5.0-litre supercharged V8 petrol units. And that’s not all, because there’s also a frugal petrol/electric hybrid version of the 3.0-litre V6 diesel.

The entry-level Range Rover Sport TDV6 diesel returns combined cycle economy of 38.7mpg with 194g/km of CO2 and the range topping 5.0 Supercharged V8 Autobiography and SVR models give poor 22.1mpg fuel returns and 298g/km CO2 emissions.

There’s also a diesel/electric hybrid version of the Ranger Rover Sport, which emits 169g/km and 44.1mpg – although at £82,650 it isn’t cheap.
There are just four trim levels to choose from – HSE, HSE Premium and the racy SVR. All models come loaded with standard kit, including leather seat trim, climate control and sat-nav.

Range Rover has a distinct design language that has evolved over the past 45 years. Originally it was an upmarket alternative to the utilitarian Land Rover, and this emphasis on form over function has seen it become one of the world’s leading luxury brands.

The Range Rover Sport takes cues from the compact Evoque and scales them up to the Range Rover’s dimensions. That means you get an imposing front end, with distinctive daytime running lights, and the familiar Range Rover script on the edge of the bonnet.

Further back, the slab sides are similar to the full-size model’s, and it’s easy to confuse the two unless they’re parked side-by-side. At the back, the roof is lower than the Range Rover’s, while the pinched rear end and high-set tail-lights are now a familiar design flourish.

You can add a £1,300 Stealth Pack, too, which adds black alloys, roof and trim. It won't be to al ltastes, but there are plenty of exterior options, such as 13 wheel designs and 17 colour choices.
Inside, the move up to Range Rover running gear means there’s more space and greater luxury. Leather is standard, but again you can upgrade to nine other options, while the dash inserts and headlining can also be personalised. The cabin has the quality feel of its larger sibling, and from behind the wheel, you could easily be forgiven for thinking that you’re driving the larger car.

The dash is the same, adding touches of hi-tech design. It’s a configurable widescreen digital display that shows useful driving data, navigation instructions and entertainment information. On that subject, the multimedia system and climate controls are also borrowed from the larger car, and while on the whole that’s no bad thing, the new nav system on the Land Rover Discovery Sport makes the set-up here look dated. It’s still functional, though.



Given its two-tonne kerb weight, you'd expect the Range Rover Sport to feel cumbersome and heavy through a series of corners. However, thanks to the extensive use of aluminium in its construction, the Range Rover Sport is still lighter than its closest rivals, and it helps give the British machine surprising agility.

There’s a choice of two diesel engines and one petrol unit, but we'd take the entry-level 3.0-litre SDV6 diesel. With 288bhp it’s got more than enough performance for every day use, allowing the Range Rover Sport to complete the 0-60mph in 6.8 seconds.

Buyers with very deep pockets can choose one of the supercharged 5.0-litre V8 petrol models. In standard tune it produces a healthy 503bhp and a muscular 625Nm of torque, resulting in a rapid 0-60mph sprint of 5.0 seconds. The recently revealed SVR boasts an even more powerful 542bhp version of the same engine, which helps slash 0.5 seconds off the 0-60mph benchmark.

All versions of the Range Rover Sport are fitted with a Terrain Response system that allows the driver to switch the car's handling dynamics, depending on the road surface. In Dynamic mode - while the steering is still light - there's next to no body roll and lots of grip.

On the normal setting, body-roll is more than acceptable and its air suspension easily handles bumps and ruts with aplomb. The Range Rover Sport is more stable than an X5, and does a better job than the BMW of keeping you on your planned course in a bend.

Where the Range Rover Sport really excels over its rivals, though, is in the rough stuff. The Terrain Response system alters the car's suspension, gear, ride height and throttle response, according to the mode selection. There are settings for mud, gravel, snow, rocks or sand and the Range Rover Sport is absolutely outstanding across all of them.

The Terrain Response system raises the car's height by 65mm to 278mm, which gives it greater ground clearance. A raft of displays also show you exactly what's going on when you take the Range Rover Sport off-road.

Land Rover also offers the Range Rover Sport a whole lot of off-roading options such as a surround-view camera system and Wading Depth indicator, which give even greater confidence when taking it off road.

On previous models, Land Rover didn't have the best reputation for reliability, but the latest Freelander, Discovery and Range Rover models are going some way to rectifying that. The newest incarnation of the Range Rover Sport shares some of its running gear and electronic systems with the bigger Range Rover, and Land Rover's rationale behind this, is by sharing technology across the range, technology will improve.

As the Range Rover Sport was launched for the 2014 model year, it's still too early to comment as to whether the decision of tech sharing has worked. Apart from the odd electrical problem, it appears that the latest models from Land Rover are reliable.

The newest Range Rover Sport hasn't yet been crash tested by Euro NCAP. However, being based on the standard Range Rover which scored five-stars, it is expected that it will perform equally well as it also comes with the same safety systems which include Xenon lights, advanced stability control, roll control and eight airbags.

As it's based on the massive original Range Rover, it should come as no surprise that the new Range Rover Sport is an extremely practical car. However, while its standard boot size is 784-litres - miles ahead of that found in the BMW X5 - with the rear seats folded flat, the Range Rover Sport falls 109 litres behind its german rival (1,761-litres to 1,652-litres).

Like the Land Rover Discovery, a third set of row of seats is available on the Range Rover Sport as a £1,600 option but they are tough to access and rather cramped. The air-suspension can be lowered by 50mm to improve access and a flat floor in the back means all three passengers will get plenty of foot space.

However, the two sculpted outer seats found on the third rear bench will leave the central rear passenger feeling perched above the other occupants.

Whichever way you look at it, the Range Rover Sport is a big, powerful four-wheel drive car that will cost a lot of money to run. However, thanks to the aluminium chassis, Land Rover has slimmed the Range Rover Sport down and the SDV6 diesel returns a combined economy of 37.7mpg and CO2 emissions of 199g/km.

A Mercedes ML350 or Porsche Cayenne Diesel is also cheaper to buy than the Range Rover Sport, and company car tax bills are lower. The TDV6 diesel which arrived in early 2014 returns a slightly better combined economy of 38.7mpg and CO2 emissions of 194g/km.

An electric-diesel hybrid version of the Range Rover Sport arrived at the end of 2013 and is the most economical car in the line-up thanks to its 169g/km of CO2 emissions and combined cycle of 44.1mpg. Yet its only available in range-topping Autobiography guise, and it features an eye-watering £82,650 price tag. That make it around £6,000 more than an identically equipped SDV6 model – meaning you’ll have to do a lot of miles in the Hybrid to offset its hefty price premium.

The price of a Range Rover Sport is around £51,000, which makes it almost £20,000 cheaper than the standard Range Rover. Like its bigger, more expensive brother, the Range Rover Sport is expected to hold on to its value well. As you’d expect, there are plenty of options to choose from, but the Sport is so well-equipped as standard that you’re unlikely to want to add extra kit.