Cars Auto

Pictures of the new Range Rover Sport have surfaced online ahead of its reveal at the New York motor show. The car will be officially unveiled on 26 March when it is driven through Manhattan the day before the show opens.

The company had previously released a official teaser shot of the new car and says that the location of the Sport’s debut is entirely appropriate, because New York city is the model’s single biggest metropolitan market and the Sport is also currently Land Rover’s best-selling model in North America.

 

The unofficial images appear to show the Sport will share its basic design DNA with the Range Rover, but evolves the wing-mounted vents seen on the current car. The car also borrows heavily from the Range Rover Evoque.

 

John Edwards, who is Land Rover’s global brand director, said: “The all-new Range Rover Sport takes the model to another level. It is Land Rover’s most dynamic vehicle yet and showcases the best of British design, engineering and technological innovation.”

 

The new Sport is based on the same all-aluminium, bonded and riveted PLA (Premium Lightweight Architecture) platform as the Mk4 Range Rover. It will be built alongside the flagship model at the company’s new PLA production line in Solihull, West Midlands.

It is expected to be a good 300kg lighter than the outgoing Sport, which is based on the same heavy-duty T5 platform as the Land Rover Discovery 4. This should mean that the base V6 diesel Sport will weigh in at about 2160kg.

 

Those who have seen the finished product say that the new car is “more obviously sporting” than the current Sport. It will be visually differentiated from the Range Rover by a more sharply raked roofline, shorter rear overhang, deeper body sides and more aggressive treatment for the nose and tail.

 

The Sport will also come with the option of seven seats, to help it compete more directly with the Mercedes-Benz M-class and the upcoming, all-new BMW X5. To add to its competitiveness in this segment, sources say that the Sport will get the option of a new 2.0-litre diesel engine.

 

Land Rovers new Sport will also be offered with a hybrid drivetrain. 

The new Defender can do to the Land Rover badge and image globally what the Evoque did for the Range Rover. That is the view of Land Rover’s design director, Gerry McGovern.

It is now over a year since Land Rover revealed the DC100 concept and began touring it worldwide at shows, getting feedback. “The concept got the thumbs-up,” said McGovern, “and 90 per cent of the 250,000 people we spoke to loved it.”

McGovern said design work on the Defender replacement had progressed and various different concepts had been looked at internally in addition to the DC100, ahead of a planned introduction in “the middle of the decade”.

He believes the “new Defender can do for Land Rover what the Evoque did for Range Rover”, bringing a new, more style-conscious buyer to the Defender and the Land Rover brand.

Although style is promised, it will not be at the expense of function. “We need a new Defender for a new generation,” said McGovern, “so it has to be relevant and desirable to a modern audience, but it has to have the essence of the Defender. James Bond needs to be able to kick the hell out of it and it will still be able to get up for more.”

McGovern understands the sensitivity of the new Defender project due to the current car’s staunch fan base, but he said it couldn’t “be developed through rose-tinted spectacles”.

He said: “A like-for-like replacement for the Defender would not be appropriate and wouldn’t be legal with safety legislation. We can still capture the essence of the past but in a modern way.