Page 72 - SHARP Summer 2024

DEFYING PHYSICS
TRACK TESTING THE 2024 RANGE ROVER SPORT SV EDITION ONE
By Mark Hacking
I
Range Rover’s brand identity revolves around an insistence that its every vehicle must be able to scale the nearest mountain with ease, while all the time continuing to cosset its passengers. For the
SV, in particular, Range Rover’s engineers have also insisted that the car can do battle with Porsches — not Cayennes, but 911s — on your local racetrack. The result is the most powerful, most extreme Range Rover ever built.
For proof, here are the numbers: the Range Rover Sport SV is powered by a twin-turbocharged 4.4-litre mild hybrid V8 that generates 626 horsepower and 553 lb-ft of torque. That horsepower figure is up 59 ponies compared to the vehicle’s predecessor, the SVR. The new SV also promises to rocket to 100 km/h in as few as 3.7 seconds, and its top speed is a verified 290 km/h.
But it’s not only obsessed with simple straight-line speed. To prove that point, the good people of Range Rover are about to let SHARP loose on the Algarve International Circuit in southern Portugal. It’s a fitting testing ground because a powerful V8 is not the only weapon in this sport utility’s arsenal. The mighty SUV also features a new trick air suspension system engineered to keep the vehicle on a more even keel during cornering, heavy braking, and acceleration. Heralded as a world first, this semi-active system (dubbed 6D Dynamics) combines height-adjustable air springs, hydraulic
N A MOTORING SECTOR BRIMMING WITH HIGH-
performance SUVs, the Range Rover Sport SV still manages to deliver the unexpected. How? By relying on its engineers in England to take everything to the extreme.
72 SUMMER 2024
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