News : 2013 Range Rover Sport revealed

David Ross, Honest John

Range Rover Sport (1)

Land Rover has unveiled the new Range Rover Sport which is set to go on sale this September with prices expected to start at around £55,000. Land Rover is calling it the ‘fastest, most agile and most responsive’ model it’s ever built yet thanks to weight saving it will be more economical than the outgoing model.

The new Sport was developed alongside the Range Rover, and follows the same design style fitting in neatly between its larger counterpart and the smaller Evoque. It retains the familiar Range Rover profile but with a sleeker and less boxy look than before.

It’s slightly longer than the current model and has a longer wheelbase too which is good news for interior space as well as handling. Unlike before, the new Sport is available as a seven-seater, making it a viable option for bigger families. The extra seats electrically fold into the boot floor, so there’s no loss in boot space when they’re not being uses. However, even Land Rover describes the extra two seats as ‘occasional’.

As with the exterior, the interior apes the larger Range Rover with a similar design plus you can expect a superb level of fit and finish. It gets a smaller steering wheel plus bigger seat bolsters to add to its sportier appeal while the driving position is more akin to the Evoque than the Range Rover.

Initially there will be two engines in the range. The supercharged 5.0-litre V8 petrol with 510PS or the 3.0-litre SDV6 diesel with 285bhp. In early 2014 a lower powered TDV6 with 255bhp will be introduced alongside the SDV8 – a 4.4-litre diesel with 335bhp. A Hybrid with emissions of just 169g/km will follow later next year and Land Rover has hinted at a four-cylinder engine making its way into the range.

Thanks to the extensive use of aluminium, the new Sport is quicker than the old model while fuel economy is also better. All models get the impressive eight-speed automatic gearbox which is also used by Jaguar. Alloy wheel sizes will range from 19-inch up to 22-inch meaning there’s plenty of scope for the bling option.

If the new Range Rover is anything to go by then we can expect much improved handling with the new Sport. It has fully-independent lightweight aluminium suspension to aid on road handling yet like all Land Rover models this is still a vehicle than can cope with proper off-road driving. The maximum ground clearance is increased to 278mm (up by 51mm) and the upgraded air suspension system automatically varies between two ride heights.

There is an all-new electric power steering designed to have more direct feel while there will be a choice of two full-time 4WD systems. One has a low-range option, for the most demanding off-road conditions with a 50/50 default power split. The other has a single-speed transfer case with a Torsen differential, which automatically distributes torque to the axle with most grip, working together with the traction control systems to deliver traction in all conditions.

Range Rover Sport (2)

Keith Adams

29 Comments

  1. That is a great looking vehicle with less bling than its predecessor (which itself is still an appealing and strong selling vehicle). In some ways it looks less controversial than the L405 new Range Rover unveiled last year.

    Good luck to it and I hope it is just as successful as its predecessor. What more could I add?

  2. I’m sure it will sell and I don’t want to be negative, but if I was to have a criticism, it’s that all three Range Rover’s are now so similar (at least in Pictures) it’s hard to tell them apart, and a family face is a good thing but incest, as we all well know, is certainly not!

  3. Yes please

    It would be interesting to see the RR and RR Sport next to each other, to see what the size difference actually is.

    It does leave the Disco 4 as the odd man out, based on the capable, but very heavy old chassis architecture. I haven’t seen any information about how this will be replaced.

  4. Looks great, but since it’s now going to have seven-seat capability, won’t it make the Discovery redundant? In my home market the Sport outsells the Disco by miles,and I can see the same happening when this one comes on stream.

  5. @ Bajan dave, when the Disco can be had from £38k and the Sport is now around £50k – and that’s for the current model that’s a 30% premium, I suspect it will attract a different market altogether anyway. Have to say, even now, I’d have a Disco over any of them, it still seems to have the image of being the most capable and practical of them all – but I suppose RR’s are still aimed at the more image conscious and financially flippant.

  6. Another gorgeous car from Jaguar Land Rover.

    I can see one of these in my drive in a couple of years if I decide against the XF Sportbrake.

    Would that make me the exception to the shallow, image obsessed idiot driver rule or would I conform to the stereotype? Don’t answer!

  7. I expect this to do well in places like Russia, especially in black with huge chrome wheels, and heavily tinted glass

  8. The more I see of new Range Rovers, the more I like my Disco TD5 and the original Defender. Bling, bling boyz!

  9. I’m not a fan of all this bling either, give me a 1970’s Rangey 2 door with a V8 and a stick box

  10. @ Mikey C:

    I haven’t heard a whisper yet about replacing the current Discovery (whose price starts from £38,000) and the range has not be rationalised yet; something that was done to the Range Rover Sport back in December which also included a new run-out editon being introduced.

    Despite this I would think a replacement would likely be announced within the next twelve months, with the seven seater option being more ‘generous’ than ‘occasional’ in terms of accommodation in the Discovery. The current Discovery 4 is still a very strong seller so I have every reason to believe there will be a successor to it.

    I have thought of something ‘to add’ about the new Range Rover Sport – a premium priced two-door version to emulate some of the style of the original Range Rover. If Land Rover can offer such an offering for the Evoque then it can almost certainly be done with the Sport, particularly as there have been a number of specialist coachbuilt ones produced by conversion companies. And the original Range Stormer concept still looks remarkably appealing.

  11. @12 Something must be in the pipeline because ive seen a disco mule around north manchester.

  12. @11 – Yes – such a vehicle would keep the production lines at Solihull humming for oh, all of 3 hours. Probably make £2.50 profit per unit as well.

  13. Once again another excellent car from JLR that is aimed at a very well off market who love the badge and no doubt exports will be very high to America, the Far East and Russia. Just be very careful if you cut up one with darkened glass in Moscow.

  14. Looks the business – only issue I have is the black shading around the windscreen, especially at the bottom – looks awkward on the old model and the problem has not totally gone away.

    Personally I think Disco 3/4 is a bit of a blind alley – too large and a bit of a brick with poor ground clearance, eg spare wheel carrier/rear axle. I have read rumours of it not being replaced. I think they need to go back in the direction of Disco 2 with large glass area and lower waistline while maintaining the iconic stepped roof, etc.

  15. LR need to define what the next Disco should be, and how to differentiate between LR and RR properly, especially in a world where 90%? of their vehicles hardly ever go off road anymore!

  16. WHAT??? No 40 speaker 60,000 watt Meridian surround-sound stereo, and no 32 inch chrome-spinner wheels?

    Not buying it then.

    So there.

  17. There is a place for both the Discovery and the Range Rover Sport as they have different appeals and don’t overlap that much in terms of image i.e. Discoveries sometimes go off road – RR Sports rarely if ever do.

    I have read that plans are in place for replacing the Discovery with a variant of the new Range Rover platform which makes sense as the economies of scale of having 3 cars off the same platform (especially if produced on the same line and sharing many parts) must be very good.

    For anyone who wants to see a tasteless Range Rover just look at this month’s Octane magazine – there’s a hideous pink one shown at the Geneva show that looks like its been painted in nail varnish – it does not go down well with Octane.

  18. very nice and can see LR shifting loads of them. LR are expanding their range considerably with rumours of a 7 seater Evoque as well as 3 new Freelander 2’s in a couple of years time. No doubt with all of these 4×4’s there is going to be many similaraties within the range. (just as long as nothing else looks like that pig ugly rear end of the Evoque!!!)

  19. Looks Like they just put the Evoque in the photocopier selected the double size function and pressed copy!

  20. Wayne & Coleen will love it! Just hope they don’t buy an orange one though, as it will clash with her complexion LOL

  21. @17

    Absolutely.

    @4

    What is wrong with wanting to get somewhere faster than the guy in front?

    @26

    The guy in front should not be hogging the overtaking lane so surely the idiot driver is the “guy in front”.

    Lovely looking car though!

  22. Driving too slowly is just as dangerous as driving too fast, as a long line of cars builds up behind the stereotypical pensioner in a Hyundai Accent doing 30 mph and, of couse, someone tries to overtake about four cars and hits a car on the other side and this leads to a multiple accident as other cars try to avoid the accident.

  23. It’s great to see what should have been from the Range Stormer concept finally realised – there are so many cues already seen from it in the Evoque, but in my opinion this wears it so much better. Look forward to seeing one ‘in the flesh’!

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