Beastly Range Rover Sport SVR Prototype Debuts at Goodwood

Range Rover Sport SVR

Land Rover has become one of the most versatile brands on the market in the past few years. In addition to the company’s stellar history as the ultimate in rugged off-roading, Land Rover has managed to combine luxury, style, prestige, and most recently, incredible dynamic performance in their vehicles. Critics have praised the company’s efforts in improving their lineup. The Range Rover Sport has been one of the media’s favorites. Though the RR Sport is already available with a 510-horsepower 5.0-liter supercharged V8, Land Rover has decided to take its performance a bit further.

Enter the Range Rover Sport SVR prototype, a 550-horsepower behemoth that ran the hill at this past weekend’s Goodwood Festival. Conceived as the ultimate in track readiness from the Land Rover brand, the company calls it, “The fastest, most agile, and most responsive Land Rover ever built,” in addition to its distinction as the most powerful Rover ever produced. Kept completely camouflaged during its runs at Goodwood, little is known about the SVR’s exterior styling upgrades. It is possible that the SVR will draw styling inspiration from Jaguar’s R-line, with body kits, blacked-out wheels, and lowered suspension separating the SVR from the standard RR sport.

Range Rover Sport

The SVR prototype will use a carryover powertrain from the current Jaguar F-type R, with a quick-shifting 8-speed ZF automatic and gobs of low-end torque. Because the current Range Rover Sport Supercharged can hit 60 mph in just over 5 seconds, expect the SVR version to achieve sub-5 second times easily. Revised, stiffer suspension and more advanced adjustability for drive modes may also be features on the new SVR Range Rover Sport, upgrades that will aid track performance significantly.

The SVR line will be produced by Jaguar-Land Rover’s newly-announced Special Vehicles Operations Team, an in-house tuning group that will be similar to Mercedes’ AMG or BMW’s M. Though the Range Rover Sport SVR won’t make it to production until next year, the prototype unveiled at the Goodwood Festival shows the future of Land Rover performance. There may be an SVR variant of every Land Rover vehicle in the near future.

Please enjoy this TFLcar.com video review of the 2014 Range Rover Sport.

frank kosarekFrank caught automotive fever early in life. Hailing from a long line of car fanatics, he was able to recite the year and model of every car that passed him by age five. His passion and love for the automobile have only grown since then. When not thinking about cars, he is reading, writing, learning, or dreaming about them. His area of expertise is in the realm of German and Italian cars, of which Porsche is a favorite. Frank currently resides in the heart of NASCAR country in Charlotte, North Carolina, with his family. He enjoys driving exotic cars in the beautiful Carolina weather.