Driving Sports

Land Rover is the gold standard of SUVs. They’ve been at it longer than anyone and they are serious about off-road performance. In their upscale brand, Range Rover, they add state of the art luxury while sacrificing none of the brand’s rough and tumble élan.

If you ever get the chance to attend a Land Rover ride-along event, I recommend it. Land Rover employs a large staff of off-road experts who travel around to events and help people understand just what these SUVs can do. I’ve come to the edge of what any sensible person would call a cliff and had the Land Rover specialist tell me to drive right on over the edge. “Okay,” I said, “It’s your car.” So over we went, and here I am to tell you that the Rover just went down that hill as smooth as a 10-lane freeway.

Land Rover has a range of vehicles to suit your needs and a wide variety of budgets. From the punchy LR2 at about $35,000 on up to the Range Rover Supercharged at $93,600, you can pick the Rover that meets your needs and your budget. I’d have to check the stock listings today, but I think that means you can buy General Motors for about the same price as a top of the line Range Rover. You don’t get a nice office in Detroit with the Range Rover, but it’s likely to hold its value better.

This week, I was in the mid-level Range Rover Sport HSE. At $58,950, this Range Rover sits right in the middle of the product line. For your money, you get a 5-passenger SUV with one of the most advanced AWD systems in the world. The Range Rover Sport has two engine options - a normally aspirated 4.4-liter V8 making 300 horsepower and 315 pound-feet of torque, or a supercharged 4.2-liter V8 making 390/410. The Supercharged version retails for $71,950.

Fuel economy (back to being a giggle for a few days this fall) is a fairly thirsty 12/18. In a week of combination real-world driving, I averaged 14.9 MPG – right in the middle.

All U.S. market Range Rovers deliver their power through a 6-speed electronic automatic transmission and a two-speed transfer case. You get locking differentials and a locking torque converter and traction control and all kinds of settings and adjustments. The chassis will raise and lower itself on its suspension at the push of a button. Remember, I said this thing was advanced. Suffice to say, if you want it, the Range Rover has it.

The interior is luxurious without being vulgar. It’s all business, but you get leather heated seats, durable floor mats, and every modern convenience on the dashboard. Navigation, hands-free Bluetooth phone support, nice stereo, advanced climate control, and so on. The Range Rover is comfortable and nice to drive.

So, how does it drive? In America, most of these fairly expensive rigs will never see rougher conditions than the gravel driveway to one’s coastal cabin or the snowy road to the ski lodge.  The Range Rover’s going to eat that stuff up like a smooth road on the 4th of July.  In normal combination driving on paved roads and highways, the Range Rover feels heavy and a bit ponderous. That’s because it is heavy and ponderous -  no one should expect it to drive like a Miata.

But even in the world of SUVs, the Range Rover is meant for comfort on the road and capability on the trail. The Range Rover does not try to be nimble and fun like a Mazda CX-9, nor Ultra-Rugged like a Nissan XTerra.  That’s the tradeoff for having an SUV that can take you over hill and dale and then present you with pride at the finest restaurant in town.

I’ve driven all the Land Rover products, and my favorite is still the diminutive LR2, but the bottom line on the Range Rover Sport HSE is that for $58,950, you can get behind the most prestigious SUV badge in the world and drive it anywhere that automobiles can go. That’s no small thing, and the reason why Range Rover will continue to be part of the automotive world for a long time to come.