Review: Range Rover Sport

When Land Rover says that they have built a car which will redefine the way one drives, you take their word for it. From where we stand, and from what we felt, the new Range Rover Sport will undoubtedly be the best selling Range Rover in India.

This new one is based on the full-size Range Rover and it gets an aluminium chassis and body and therefore when compared to the outgoing Sport (which was based on the Discovery) it has shed some weight - a whole 402 kg of it.

What you can conclude therefore is that the new Range Rover Sport is more agile and you can even throw it around a corner and not be worried about the tail losing the track especially since it weighs close to two tonnes.

To push this mammoth forward, the Range Rover Sport comes equipped with a 3.0-litre diesel powertrain that churns out 288bhp. The engine is hooked upto an eight-speed automatic gearbox which guarantees smooth shifts and an overall amazing driving experience. But we all know that Range Rovers are amazing, but this one's more evolved than the rest.

The evolution does come at a price, one which crosses the 1 crore mark and Land Rover says that it is capable of doing some serious off-roading. But will anyone take a car that costs that much into the woods? Well, Land Rover doesn't insist you do that, but says if the situation demands, the Range Rover Sport is ready and is a capable off-roader.

The car does not have a transfer case, but what it does have is some clever electronics that makes it get through so easily and all you have to do is feed the beast with power. The Terrain Response System and the -based 4x4 system take care of the rest. The system works overtime and you can choose the terrain or just switch it into Auto mode, where the car thinks for itself and you just keep on driving.

Even with the standard tyres, the Range Rover Sport feels at home in the rough terrain and it is equally capable on-road. Inside, the cabin is more or less like the Evoque and it gets a touchscreen display that controls most of the car's features and a clear and easy-to-use cabin.

The Range Rover Sport is available in S, HS, HSE and Autobiography trims and prices for the 5.0-litre supercharged petrol Autobiography tops out at Rs 1.65 crore (ex-showroom, Mumbai).