Grace Under Pressure

Sharp Staff June 9, 2024

Range Rover & SHARP

Big things aren’t supposed to be graceful, and yet the Range Rover Sport SV exists. It’s like a Clydesdale that can do ballet, or a Jumbo Jet that flies like an F22. Sitting in the driver’s seat is like having a killer whale as your synchronized swimming partner.

Feast your eyes on this, the most powerful and, in our humble opinion, the best-handling Range Rover of all time. Seeing as this storied British marque dates all the way back to 1970 (or back to 1948 if we consider Land Rover, too) that’s saying a lot. Making such a generously-sized machine a graceful dance partner was a devilishly difficult job. Here’s how Range Rover’s clever engineers pulled off this magic trick.

World-Class Engineering

The engineering team was based in the company’s historic headquarters in Solihull, smack dab in the middle of the English midlands, but the SV was tested all over the world. There is some excellent footage of prototypes whipping around the Nürburgring Nordschleife, the legendary racetrack where all the world’s most driver-focused machinery is tested.

“It’s a visceral addition to the Range Rover Sport line-up that powerfully demonstrates the world-class expertise of our high-performance specialists,” explains Nick Collins, executive director of vehicle programmes at Jaguar Land Rover. “New Range Rover Sport SV delivers an optimum blend of supreme performance, unrivalled desirability, capability and refinement,” Collins added.

Good Bones, Trick Suspension

Beneath the SV’s purposeful exterior with all that lovely exposed carbon-fibre detailing are the same good bones you’ll find beneath all recent Range Rovers. The SUV rides on the company’s MLA-Flex (Modular Longitudinal Architecture) that is so beloved by critics in the full-size Range Rover.

To that architecture, the engineers added the ingenious 6D Dynamics air suspension system. It’s the most sophisticated suspension system of any SUV in this class — and maybe any SUV ever — using a world-first combination of hydraulic interlinked dampers, height-adjustable air springs and pitch control. It’s supercar technology in an SUV. As Range Rover explains, this is a “semi-active system, which removes the need for conventional anti-roll bars, dramatically reduces pitch and roll to maintain a near-level body stance during extreme cornering and acceleration, while also reducing weight, increasing grip, and benefiting comfort and refinement.” Behind the wheel, it feels as if this Range Rover is defying physics, attacking corners like a much smaller machine.

Depending on the driving mode, the SV rides between 10 and 25 millimetres lower than other Range Rover Sport models. That may not sound like much, but the lower centre of gravity becomes immediately apparent on a twisty road.

The 6D Dynamics system goes a long way to giving this machine such balletic ability, but it doesn’t work alone. It works in conjunction with Intelligent All-Wheel Drive tuned specifically for the SV, all-wheel steering, torque vectoring by braking, Configurable Dynamics and an active locking rear differential.

It all adds up to sports-car level cornering ability. Seriously, this SUV can pull 1.1 times the force of gravity in lateral acceleration on all-season tires. That’s a whopping 22 percent increase over the previous generation Range Rover Sport SVR on summer tires.

A Mighty Powerplant

Range Rover’s 4.4-litre twin-turbo V8 is a familiar engine in the company’s product line-up, but we’ve never experienced it like this before. The engineer’s cranked it up to 11. Compared to the 5.0-litre supercharged V8 in the old Range Rover Sport SVR, the new motor is both more powerful and more frugal, producing 15 percent lower CO2 emissions. Exclusive to the Sport SV, this highly-tuned iteration of the 4.4-litre V8 cranks out a mighty 626 horsepower and 553 lb-ft of torque, which is roughly 59 horsepower and 37 lb-ft more than the old SVR. The result? A top speed of 290 km/h and 0-100 km/h in well under four seconds. The torque hits like a sledgehammer and then just keeps up the pressure.

An exclusive SV button on the steering wheel activates hold-on-tight mode. The 6D Dynamics suspensions drops down by 15 mm and the driver can then select the track-oriented TracDSC mode to, erm, “more freely explore Range Rover Sport SV’s dynamic balance.” In other words, this SUV can drift if you’ve got the race track and tire budget and talent to make it happen.

Slow It Down

The unenviable task of slowing down all this speeding metal falls to an optional set of carbon-ceramic brakes by Brembo. The hefty eight-piston calipers up front clamp down on 440 mm discs that look like they could slow down a Dreamliner. Together with the optional 23-inch carbon-fibre wheels, they save nearly 70 kg in total. And, as any keen driver knows, weight is the enemy of speed.

All that performance is wrapped in a deliciously understated package. As JLR’s chief creative officer, Prof. Gerry McGovern said, “New Range Rover Sport SV’s clean and reductive design amplifies its dramatic proportions and sporting personality.” Indeed.

The 2024 Range Rover Sport EV EDITION ONE is, sadly, sold out but the 2025 model should be right around the corner. Watch this space.