“For a start, it looks the business, more aggressive than the big Range Rover, yet with the brand's recognisable aspects retained - you know this is a Range Rover. …”

“Land Rover has tried to achieve something extremely difficult with the Range Rover Sport - engineering a car with exceptional on- and off-road driving dynamics. Off-road, we can't really argue. We've seen and experienced what the Sport can do, and it's impressive stuff, with decent axle articulation and good approach, departure and breakover angles. Thank the standard air suspension, with Terrain Response, and the separate Integrated Body-Frame, for that lot.”

“Those off-road assisting mechanicals are pure Discovery 3, which means that the Sport shares a downside with its Land Rover sister model - a fairly breathtaking kerb weight, of between 2,455 (TDV6) and 2,572kg (Supercharged). It's harder to criticise that, however, when you experience for yourself what the Sport can do. Its 'range of ability', Land Rover calls it, the way it can produce the goods both on-road and off, is virtually unmatched.”

“All units drive through a six-speed automatic gearbox supplied by ZF. Similar to the unit used in the Aston Martin DB9, its shifts are slick and smooth and, on the Supercharged car in sport or manual-override mode, it even blips the throttle on downshifts, which smoothens the shifts and sounds good and sporty, too.”

“… the Range Rover Sport is an immensely strong car. We took it to full axle articulation, rocking on two diagonally opposed wheels with the other two diagonals off the ground, weighted the interior with two adults on the 'hanging' axis, and opened the large tailgate. On some cars, it wouldn't have quite shut properly due to body twist, but no problems with the Range Sport. …”

“..Cabin comfort is excellent. …, the Range Rover Sport would make a fine way to cross a continent, even a continent with iffy roads. The seats are large yet nicely laterally supportive, with fold down armrests for the full armchair experience. The steering wheel adjusts amply for reach and rake, too, ….Rear accommodation is fine, with good headroom, adequate legroom…”

“Noise inside the cabin is well suppressed. The petrol engines emit just the right amount of noise through to the cabin for a pseudo-sporty car, and road noise is almost absent, but there is a little wind noise from the a-pillars and the large door mirrors.”

“For us, the most desirable of the top-end features are Dynamic Response, which sharpens the chassis, and the Logic 7 sound system, which is the mutt's…”