2017 Range Rover SVAutobiography Performance Test Drive – Video

Comfortable, capable, and discreetly aristocratic, the Range Rover used to be the world’s only true luxury SUV, the preferred off-roader of princes and plutocrats. But with the arrival of Bentley’s Bentayga, Rolls-Royce’s giant Cullinan crossover, looming on the horizon and Daimler working on a GLS-based Maybach SUV, the game has changed; Range Rover now has some serious competition in the segment. Which explains the launch of the quickest and one of the most expensive Range Rovers in the history of the storied British off-road specialist: the 2017 SVAutobiography Dynamic.

The lush, plush, $200,945 long-wheelbase SVAutobiography that tops the current Range Rover lineup appeals to buyers who want to luxuriate in decadent comfort. But SVO boss Mark Stanton says there is a small but affluent group of customers who want both maximum luxury and more driver appeal in their SUV. “It would never occur to them to buy a Range Rover Sport,” Stanton says. “They don’t want the overt performance look of the Range Rover Sport SVR.” The SVAutobiography Dynamic, Stanton says, is the Range Rover for them.

 

 

the SVAutobiography Dynamic is deliberately more laid-back than the Range Rover Sport SVR. But that doesn’t make it slow. The claimed 0-60 mph time of 5.1 seconds ain’t shabby for a 5,400-pound-plus SUV with all the trimmings.

What that single data point doesn’t tell you, however, is how effortlessly quick the SVAutobiography Dynamic feels on the road compared with a regular full-size Range Rover. The secret sauce is not so much the 40 hp power boost, but the 41 lb-ft increase in torque to 502 lb-ft, all of which swells nicely right in the midrange of the powerband.