Nurburg, Germany - A new Range Rover Sport SVR has lapped the famous Nordschleife circuit at the Nurburgring in Germany in 8m14s, making it the fastest standard production SUV around the ‘Ring.
Land Rover’s new performance flagship has an uprated version of Land Rover’s five-litre supercharged V8, tuned to deliver 405kW - a 30kW increase over the standard V8 Supercharged. It made its dynamic debut at the Goodwood Festival of Speed in June, after which the developement team returned to the Nurburgring in July to continue testing.
The handling characteristics of the SVR have been honed on the demanding Nurburgring Nordschleife because the undulating circuit’s challenging layout represents the ultimate test for high performance vehicles.
“We wanted to see whether an SUV could behave like a performance car in this challenging environment.”
Chief engineer for vehicle integrity Mike Cross said: “The Nurburgring is a benchmark for vehicle development and testing, and cars become stronger, more durable and faster over its 20 kilometres and 70-plus corners.”
The development of the Range Rover Sport SVR by Jaguar Land Rover’s Special Vehicle Operations team is aimed at producing the most performance-focused Range Rover Sport yet - without compromising its all-terrain capabilities or comfort levels.
It has a two-speed transfer case providing a choice of high and low gear ratios, and the same 850mm wading depth as other models in the Range Rover Sport line-up.
The Range Rover Sport SVR will arrive in Land Rover showrooms in 2015.