My Range Rover Sport V8SC is approaching the half-way mark in its 12 months with CAR and it has been quite eventful so far. The reason why this vehicle often finds itself in such “interesting” situations is because it offers such a wide spread of abilities. I recently chatted to a representative of another car company (one that makes a rival product to the Rangey), and his attention soon turned to my bright metallic blue/purple steed, or the “Malema-mobile” as some colleagues have dubbed it. “Show me another vehicle with which you can do 230 km/h to the foot of the mountain, and then at the press of a button, drive up the mountain,” he said. Indeed.
So, the first task my Rangey performed was to take me up the snow-covered Matroosberg mountains early this winter. The drive out to Ceres highlighted a few things immediately. Firstly, front seat comfort is ridiculously good – partly because you have such a high seating position, and partly because of the folding centre armrest, it is the only car in the world with which I can take on the trademark pose of Auguste Rodin’s “The Thinker” while driving.
Other highlights include the brilliant Jaguar-sourced touch-screen info-tainment system – permanently hooked up to my iPod – rear DVD screens with headphones and even a chilled centre storage box – thus far unused, but then summer is approaching fast.
With such low-profile tyres and massive alloy wheels, the Rangey Sport has a firm low-speed ride (as is the case with most air-suspension vehicles), which smoothes out considerably at speed. Certainly, the ride out to Ceres in pouring rain could hardly have been more comfortable. Of course, one of the vehicle’s biggest attractions is its supercharged 5,0-litre V8 engine that delivers 375 kW and 625 N.m of torque. It is very hard to resist the temptation to simply floor the throttle at every opportunity and to marvel at the big vehicle’s startling accelerative abilities.
And the roar that accompanies such a manoeuvre adds to the appeal. Certainly, however, fuel consumption is atrocious. But as Range Rover rightly pointed out after its own recent research, owners responded to the fuel economy question with a, “who cares” shrug. I guess that’s right. If you can afford a R1 million SUV with a supercharged V8 engine, fuel economy isn’t likely to be an issue. But nevertheless it is for me, seeing as I have to fork out around R600 every time I fill up outside the range of our sponsored fuel pump… And that hurts. Happily, I’ve noticed that the initial 18 litres/100 km figure that stared back at me from the instrumentation at the beginning of the test term has now settled at around the 16 litres/100 km mark. The other day I even got it down to 13,5 litres/100 km on a run into the Swartland for the recent rally. This requires painful levels of self-restraint, though.
Arriving at Matroosberg, I selected the mud&ruts setting on the Rangey’s Terrain Response system and simply drove nearly all the way up the mountain without any hassle, to much amazement of Landcruiser and even Defender drivers next to the road. Window down, I could hear one of them remarking, “Nee, f*kkit boet, jou kar is te mooi om hier te kom ry!” Well, I made it up and down and didn’t even pick up a scratched rim. Nor did I have to worry about any other settings and I could even maintain my “The Thinker” pose.
Back at the foot of the mountain, we simply pumped up the tyres again before selecting “Dynamic” on the Terrain Response and putting foot back to Cape Town where I hosed it down before dressing up for an evening out on the town. And that’s the amazing thing about the Range Rover Sport – whether bundu bashing with knackered double-cabs up the Matroosberg, or rubbing wheelarches with Rolls-Royces and Mercedes at glitzy events, it does it all so effortlessly.
