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Some cars make sense.
The small, light two seater will have lots of power and rear drive, for example.
A [UNKNOWN] will either go super diesel or silky smooth petrol, have lots of space, and be very comfortable.
An SUV though, well that can be all number of things.
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The Range Rover Sport, for example, works Wonderfully with a diesel engine.
Some people would argue, you don't need anything more, or there's a beautiful 500 horsepower supercharged V8.
But Jaguar Land Rover's Special Vehicle Ops didn't thing either of those were really quite up to snuff.
So it came up with this The SVR.
A 542 brake horsepower, 502 pound-foot, monster utility vehicle.
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SVO, Jaguar Land Rover's new company approved Skunk Works is there to churn out all manner of cars.
SVR cars will be the performance motors.
SVX is all about off-road prowess.
And SV Autobiography motors of the people who like a little bit more luxury in their life.
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Cars with an SVR badge all have four main attributes.
The four wheel drive have better arrow, less weight, and more power,, and because this is SVO's full production car it's something of a shop window for them.
And the stats this thing has, well they're pretty impressive, naught to 60 Takes 4.7 seconds, and its top speed is over 160 miles an hour.
That's quite fast, especially considering this thing tips the scales at 2.3 tons.
And its shape doesn't really lend itself to going mega quickly.
But hey, that's engineering for you, right?
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Here's some of the particulars.
The rear brakes have special carbon cooling plates while the fronts are chilled by air intakes where the front fog lights live on the production car.
Those intakes help cool the SVRs new engine.
It's the same one you'll find in a Jag F-type R, one of my favorite cars ever but it needs more air to keep it from going bang.
The spoiler on the car's rear isn't decorative either.
It works to push the car through the air, and aid downforce.
Weight has been shaved off here, and there too, all in order to make it a cut above the rest.
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Aside from being a technically tweaked tank, the new engine adds so much more to this car.
I mean, the standard five liter supercharged Range Rover Sport sounds pretty good, quite raw and nasty.
But this, this is something else.
It sounds like an S type.
It has that same tone that made me fall in love with the Jag.
It pops and bangs, it sounds angry and mean and, well like it's gonna eat the world.
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[SOUND] Not unlike the F-TYPE, in here, there's room for people.
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There's a few driving modes to play with.
All of the usual Land Rover toys, to ensure you can climb a mountain in an afternoon, should you choose to.
But, you'll be spending most of your time in either normal, or dynamic.
Normal is this car's day to day, dropping the kids off at school, going to work, going to football practice mode, and it makes it feel like a range ranger Range Rover Sport, which is a good thing, a wonderful thing, in fact.
But, Dynamic.
Well dynamic turns the wick up by a factor of a million.
It completely transforms the car.
The steering gets heavier, throttle response gets sharper, gear box angrier, and everything becomes a lot more Fun.
[NOISE] And it gathers pace at quite some rate.
This This is a really really heavy car.
It's nearly 2.5 tons for gods sake.
Yet it doesn't feel like a heavy car.
There's no effort involved here.
You can thread it through bends.
You know where the front wheels are.
You know what the car's doing.
You feel safe in it's hands.
The ride as well is fantastic, it's smooth.
You don't feel nasty lumps and bumps in the road, the car just absorbs them.
Even in its sportiest setting it's still smooth, it's still a joy to drive, it's still easy.
You can sling it round a corner and yet it lean quite.
A bit.
Not as much as a standard Range Rover Sport, I hasten to add.
But, it doesn't feel like it's gonna fall over.
It doesn't feel unstable, and you can really hurl it around.
You can hustle this thing at some quite silly speeds.
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The people at SVO They aren't just people who are employed to put different bits on a car, and see what sticks.
They're proper engineers.
these guys have come from the likes of Williams Formula 1, places like that.
They know how to make cars go very quickly.
It's been their entire lives.
So, i wanna say this is the best possible example of a Range Rover Sport you're gonna get.
This is the best possible example of a Range Rover Sport you're gonna get.
The interior, most of it, is, well, it's what you get in a Range Rover Sport.
The materials are fantastic.
The touch points are lovely.
There is one exception that makes me a little bit hesitant about it, and that's the seats.
I know they're there for a reason, because this is the sporty car and there's sporty seats.
But they are a bit tacky.
Not a huge fan of those.
And, the entertainment system remains rubbish!
It's hard to navigate.
It's complicated, It's overly menu'ed and it looks very, very dated.
But I know the JLR has a new one because I've driven it in the Discovery Sport and the Jag XE.
That works really well and is really lovely.
So expect that to appear in these at some point in the future, presumably when they facelift it.
The gearbox is and eight speed also.
And its seamless, it's smooth.
And it just works beautifully well.
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To look at the thing has been a touch polarizing because it looks like a Range Rover Sport with handsome aftermarket stuff done to it but I'll say this, nothing is on this car that shouldn't be there.
There's a reason things look the way they do.
So the fog lights were taken out.
So the giant engine could be cooled and yet it looks a big odd, but if that didn't happen, the engine wouldn't get the cooling it needed and then bad things would happen, and you don't want bad things to happen because when things go pop on a Ranger Rover, things tend to get quite expensive.
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Is there better stuff on the market?
I'd certainly give it a look if I were you.
I definitely, definitely would.
Because it's hilarious fun, I don't know any other SUV that makes a noise quite like this.
Big old dirty V8 slinging out anger and hatred on the road.
I like it.
A lot.
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I like that it exists, because it's proof that if you give some talented engineers some time and the tools to work.
They can create something that's faster than a Porsche, handles in a manner best described as unnatural, and still works as a car.
I don't like something else about it though, and it's something that's no fault of the people Who made it.
There will be some people who won't fall under this sweeping generalization.
But there is certainly going to be a few who will.
Our buyers going to understand just what went into making this car so brilliant.
Will they get that this is the most impressive, the most advanced version of the Range Rover Sport you can get now or will they understand why.
Will they get the engineering that went into it, will they appreciate.
It.
Or, when they simply see the most expensive car on the list, and buy it just to show off.
Not that there's anything wrong with being in the position to take the box, and buy the toy, but wouldn't it be nice if more people knew what went into their cars?
Or, maybe I'm being a bit of a [UNKNOWN] ...
aside the Range Rover Sport SVR seems like an answer to a question that didn't really need asking, "Can the Range Rover Sport go any faster?" The 500 horsepower V8 is quick enough, hell the diesel will do for most people.
But, because someone did dare to ask that question we ended up with something pretty cool.
It's a Range Rover but without an anchor.
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