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2015 Range Rover Sport SVR with 550 HP Is the Fastest Land Rover Ever

While SUV facelifts may bring downsizing (2015 Cayenne, anybody?), fans of performance SUV shouldn’t fret. Their favorite genre has now been populated by yet another super-beefy character, in the person of the 550 hp Range Rover Sport SVR.
2015 Range Rover Sport SVR 27 photos
Photo: Land Rover
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After being teased on countless occasions and even lapping the Nurburgring in 8 minutes and 14 seconds, the model doesn’t exactly come as a surprise, but this hardly makes its game of numbers less impressive.

To be more precise, we are talking about 550 hp and 502 lb-ft (680 Nm) of torque. The Range Rover Sport was already fitted with Jaguar Land Rover’s 5.0-liter blower-gifted V8 in its Supercharged guise, which delivers 40 hp and 41 lb-ft (55 Nm) less.

What Land Rover did here was to follow Jaguar’s scheme, with the latter having already installed the 550 hp version of the unit in its XFR-S, XKR-S, XJR and F-Type R Coupe.

Nonetheless, the SVR moniker brings much more than an increase in muscle. We don’t even have to go too far from the engine in order to exemplify that, as the ubiquitous ZF 8-speed automatic has been upgraded.

Further down the power line, we find an upgraded Dynamic Active Rear Locking Differential, which probably means you’ll be able to drift this behemoth. Don’t forget that the Terrain Response 2-controlled all-wheel drive can feed any of the axles with up to 100 percent of the torque. Fret no offroading fans, all the good hardware is still here, two-speed transfer case included. Even the ground clearance is the same.

As a result of this tech work-out, the Range Rover Sport SVR can play the 0 to 60 mph (96 km/h) game in 4.5 seconds. Should the driver keep mashing the throttle, the SUV will hit 162 mph (260 km/h).

And because comparing Performance SUV’s 0 to 60 times is as relevant as using such cars for the school run, we’ll just go ahead and do it. With the current range of such vehicles, the RRS SVR (hey, if LR can play the letters name, so can we) only falls behind the Porsche Cayenne Turbo, with the German needing only 4.1s for the job and offering a top speed of 173s. Still, the 2015 Porsche Cayenne Turbo S isn’t out yet an neither is the second-generation BMW X5 M, with both expected to bow by the end of the year.

In a piece of info that's just as relevant, this launch means the Range Rover Sport will beat its own Pikes Peak record.

If you ask us, the aesthetic side of the SVR badge taps into the rich world of Range Rover (Sport) customization, a move that has easily come to characterize the entire industry. And in case you were wondering, yes, the hue you see here is only offered on the SVR, being dubbed Estoril Blue.

The same “let’s grab our business back from the tuners” attitude is used inside the car, where the most important novelty is a pair of new sports seats.

The time has come to talk pricing, with the Range Rover Sport SVR will drill a US$110,475 hole in your bank account. In other words, this is an US$ 17,000 premium over the price of the Autobiography. Once again, behind the Cayenne’s $113,600 starting price and this is before we dip into the list of options, where Porsche is knows to push things far, very far.

PS: Jaguar Land Rover may just have the most confusing performance vehicle nomenclature, at least when it comes to major carmakers. Other than that, we’re really cool with the SVR here.

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About the author: Andrei Tutu
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In his quest to bring you the most impressive automotive creations, Andrei relies on learning as a superpower. There's quite a bit of room in the garage that is this aficionado's heart, so factory-condition classics and widebody contraptions with turbos poking through the hood can peacefully coexist.
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