Land Rover heads to the Nürburgring to test how much potential the new Range Range Sport SVR truly has.
When you watch any video starring the 20km long Nordschleife, it’s traditional to include phrases like ‘brutal’, ‘daunting’ and ‘pushed to the extreme’ among other hackneyed clichés. And don’t forget that all-important reference to ‘the Green Hell’, coined by Sir Jackie Stewart himself. And yes, across the atmospheric voiceover are gorgeously basey engine notes emanating from the subject vehicle at full chat. We all know the drill.
You’re less likely though for said subject to be a top of the range 4×4.
In this video, and with the all-new Range Rover Sport SVR, Land Rover aimed to prove that the 40-year old off-road weapon of choice could be honed to sportscar levels (and as we found out recently, the current Sport is hardly a wobbly blancmange to start with). Enter Land Rover’s chief engineer Mike Cross into the new bucket seats to put the new 550hp model to the test on the Nürburgring’s daunting (there we go again) curves.
So far, with the SVR’s debut not due before the upcoming Goodwood Festival of Speed, all we know is that the new sporty Sport will be ‘the fastest and most powerful ever production Land Rover’ and marks the first time a Range Rover will wear the SVR badge, reserved as it is for the company’s high performance models. That 550hp power figure is likely to emanate from JLR’s established 5.0-litre supercharged V8, making 250kph a breeze.
Oh, after some digging, it turns out SVR means ‘Special Vehicle Racing’, courtesy of the vehicle’s links with Land Rover’s Special Vehicle Operations division.
Source – Land Rover MENA
