Wednesday 30th July 2014

Range Rover Sport SVR 'ring time

Of course it was going to happen! 550hp SUV laps the Nordschleife, faster than a 1 M Coupe too

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Eight minutes and 14 seconds, even in a world of NISMO GT-Rs and Porsche 918 Spyders, is still a very quick Nordschleife lap. That's the time Range Rover claims the new Sport SVR has set as part of its 'exhaustive testing schedule' at the 'ring. Its reputedly the fastest production SUV lap ever recorded too, which sounds horribly like laying down the gauntlet for an ML63 AMG Black Series, Cayenne GT2 or X5 M GTS. Please no.

Destination Nurburgring anyone?

However, regardless of opinions on the car or the current fashion for 'ring lap bragging rights, 8min 14sec is quicker than a fair few other lot of cars. As well as the aforementioned 1 M, there's the Renault Megane R26.R (8:17), Lexus IS-F (8:18), Skyline GT-R R32 (8:22) and E46 M3 (8:22). It's just a second off the E60 M5 and Mercedes C63 AMG too.

Mike Cross has described the car as having "outstanding on-road performance capabilities" and, before any controversy emerges, the car was 'a standard production example'. So as it will be sold, not shorn of any equipment or indeed enhanced with anything either. We wouldn't bank on this livery being offered though.

All that's been announced about SVR sales is that the cars will be in showrooms in 2015. Therefore expect a full debut in production spec with prices towards the end of this year, probably at the Paris or LA motor shows.

[Lap time source: Wikipedia]

[mrpushrod]

On seeing this I immediately thought back a few years to the BMW X5 Le Mans concept, I think even the SVR would fold compared to this....




The slow speed stuff may be a bit tricky though, from memory you couldn't give it all the beans in the first couple of gears as the drivetrain couldn't handle it. I suppose that's what happens when you put a Le Mans V12 into an X5!