You Can Now Have The Range Rover Velar With A 542bhp V8
Last week, Land Rover announced it had canned the wondrous Range Rover SV Coupe. At the time, this made us rather sad, but as luck would have it, the British firm has a little something up its sleeve to soften the blow.
It’s called the Range Rover Velar SVAutobiography, and it’s what happens when JLR’s Special Vehicle Operations lot get their hands on the aesthetically-pleasing SUV.
The main change is behind that handsome face. Before, the most powerful Velar you could buy had a 380bhp 3.0-litre supercharged V6, which clearly won’t do for the SVO people. Naturally, the only solution was to dump a 5.0-litre supercharged V8 in there.
As in the Range Rover Sport SVR, it’s good for 542bhp. 0-62mph drops from 5.5 seconds to 4.5, which is - preposterously - faster than a manual Porsche 718 Cayman S. With enough space, it’ll keep going until 170mph. That’ll do nicely.
Naturally, trying to replicate these figures will demolish fast quantities of fuel, but don’t worry - a bigger 82-litre fuel tank has been fitted. This should stop petrol station visits becoming a daily occurrence. Maybe.
We also have a raft of chassis changes to go with the huge power increase. For a kick-off, the brakes have grown, with four-piston calipers squeezing vast 395mm discs at the front and sliding calipers paired with 396mm rotors at the rear.
The air suspension, all-wheel drive system and active locking rear differential have all been fine-tuned to make the Velar more up for being chucked around, plus there are now beefier anti-roll bars fore and aft. All told, SVO sunk 63,900 hours into the SVAutobiography’s bespoke setup.
To make the vehicle visually distinct from its less powerful siblings, huge vents have been added at the front, along with a revised grille. The rear bumper is new too, working together nicely with the quad tailpipes. It’s as attractive as the regular Velar, just ever so slighter meaner.
At £86,120 before options (of which there will be many), the Range Rover Velar SVAutobiography isn’t what you’d call cheap, but we’re struggling to think of a classier and more practical way to do 0-62mph in under five seconds for the same cash.
Growing up on a diet of World Rally Championship highlights and lengthy Gran Turismo 2 sessions, a life in cars was as good as inevitable for Matt.
Comments
Wow this thing is amazing, finally POWEER
I HATE SUVS.
But this thing is perfect. Can do off road, luxurious, looks great and now has a great engine aswell.
Honestly I would’ve wanted an XFR-S wagon but this isn’t a bad alternative
Hopefully they do an SVR version
63900 hours/24
=2662.5 days
2662.5/365 days
=7.2945
Holy crap that’s long enough to develop an entire car
It’d probably be a little longer than that if you factor in the leap year
Not a whole lot but 7 years is a long time
Yeah. It was certainly developed 24/7 by a single person.
I see you’re proficient in “quick maths”.
I WANT AN XFRRRRRRRRRR
oh well, this is good enough
Yes!!!! I really wish they would make a new XFR or XF SVR. They need something to take on the M5/E63S.
Or how about an Audi B9 s4/rs4 in wagon body style?
Still well under 5sec for 0-62mph/100kph, cheaper to run, still very classy and practical, much lower fuel consumption, probably cheaper to insure and maintain. Also means you don’t look like an immature, try hard, 2nd rate footballer.
not the same braaaap from the v6 is to the v8
Like most modern Land Rovers it’ll probably spend more time in the workshop than on the road.
Now this is a real SUV. I have no problem with SUV companies making an SUV like this one.
still take a jeep grand Cherokee track-hawk over it
Am I the only one that gets triggered about why they don’t just call all their 5.0L models SVR?
This one isn’t aimed for full out performance like the SVR ones are. These ones have a greater performance to luxury ratio than a standard one. The SVR ones are more sport