“Ripe dark raspberry, perfume of roses, some spice, a little new leather. Good volume, pretty red fruits, a bit juicy too.” Words that have been used to describe one of Tyrrell’s Sacred Sites wines, the 8 Acre Shiraz, but the taster could equally be expressing their thoughts on this Firenze Red Range Rover Sport.
Launched in 2022 in dramatic fashion with Jessica Hawkins driving the Range Rover Sport up the Kárahnjúkar Dam in Iceland, this SUV always promised to be something special. With petrol, diesel, and plug-in hybrid models available, there is a Range Rover Sport to suit every palate.
The Range Rover Sport I spent a couple of weeks driving was this First Edition D350, which is powered by a 3.0 litre, Ingenium 6-cylinder twin turbo diesel mild hybrid engine with an 8-speed automatic transmission. The engine produces 258kW of power and 700Nm of torque and will do 0-100km/h in 5.9 seconds and on to a top speed 234 km/h. The official combined fuel economy is 7.2l/100km and for my time with the Sport I used 8.4l/100km. This is a quiet diesel engine and I noted that in the cabin that I couldn’t even perceive that it was a diesel and it turns out this is because there is augmented sound enhancement in Dynamic and Comfort modes.
This particular all-wheel drive SUV was fitted with the optional ($14,691) Stormer Handling Pack that includes all-wheel steering, Dynamic Air suspension with Dynamic Response pro and I found that it smoothed over the bumps in the road very nicely. The Range Rover Sport was very comfortable for long drives, and possibly a little too much in Comfort mode as it was a too soft for me and almost rocked me to sleep and for that reason, I spent most of my time in Dynamic mode.
In addition to the standard off-road drive modes, Wade, Sand, Mud Ruts, Grass/Gravel/Snow, there four customisable terrain modes that can each be named. You can adjust the differentials, powertrain, traction control, and ride control in these terrain modes or if you are like me you could just press the rotary switch that adjusts the drive modes to engage ‘Auto’ and use the downhill decent control when needed. The Range Rover Sport also has wade sensing technology and the maximum wade depth is 900mm on spec sheet, but 770mm under the menu in the vehicle?
When you stop the Range Rover Sport and turn it off the vehicle lowers itself down thanks to the air suspension and when it does this the air suspension is a bit noisy. Even though the Range Rover Sport does lower down it is still a tall SUV and I had to step up into it over the puddle light that illuminates in the night. All four doors have smart keyless entry so no matter who gets to the Range Rover first the door will unlock for them if you are within the specified distance to it with the key in your handbag.
With the soft close doors quietly shutting once you are in the Range Rover Sport, you will feel encapsulated within the cabin thanks to good sound proofing with just some wind noise coming from side mirrors. There are many beautiful materials used in the Range Rover Sport cabin from the suede-like roof lining to the soft leather. The rubber mats on the floors may not be all that luxurious, but they are very practical if you are outside doing a muddy job. Other notable interior features include the panoramic sunroof, which opens for the front half, and the double sun visor with one for front and one for side.
I particularly liked the use of materials on the door trims, except for the gloss black plastic that is hard to keep nice looking. But if a vehicle ever needed electric buttons for opening the doors this is it because the door pull is tricky to see among the other dark materials used on the doors.
The seats are trimmed in Ebony perforated Semi-Aniline leather and the driver and passengers’ seat have 22-way power adjustment with three memory positions available. There is adjustment for recline, forward/back, and seat heigh front and rear on the doors and then under the infotainment screen you can adjust the headrest up and down, side bolster support, front leg extension and 4-way lumber support. Even with all of this adjustment available I still felt like I was sitting up too high in the driver’s seat.
The front seats have even more luxury on offer with four massage types available with five different directions and five levels of intensity. Both the front and rear seats in this Range Rover Sport are heated and cooled, and these worked well except the cooled seats were noisy when in use. Another annoying feature of the front seats were the adjustable arm rests because they block you from clipping up the seat belt in so you have pull them up to do so and lower them back down. At least at night the seat belt latch lights up so you can see it easily.
Amidst the luxury there is also plenty of technology on offer like the Pivi Pro infotainment system with 13.1” touchscreen and Amazon Alexa. The Range Rover also has wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, which works well and a wireless charger for compatible devices located under the infotainment screen. Voice control can be used for some infotainment operations and worked well for making phone calls, changing the radio station and setting a destination on the sat nav.
This Range Rover Sport comes with the optional Front Centre Console Refrigerator Compartment ($1,670), which is located under the arm rest. It’s not large enough for full-size wine bottles, but would fit two piccolo sized bottles that could be enjoyed at the end of a days driving and the base has a removable rubber mat in the base for easy cleaning. Less easy to keep clean is the gloss black on the centre console and steering wheel as it attracts dust and gets bad fingermarks on it. Plus, at the wrong angle the sun reflects off the centre console directly into the driver’s eyes.
The upper and lower glove boxes are handy for storage and there is a 12V socket located in the upper one and the ledge under the centre console has one USB-C port. If there is nothing in the cup holders they can be completely slid back to reveal a deep cubby below with one USB-A and another USB-C port. The cup holders are both quite deep so your standard sized coffee cup sits quite low down in them, held in by the grippy sides. If you do have a spill, they do have a removable under mat in them for easy cleaning. While the cubby in front doors does fit a large sized drink bottle, they are not moulded, so the bottle lays at a 45o angle.
The rear seats of the Range Rover Sport offer almost as much opulence as the front seats with power recline adjustment and ample head and leg room for two adults to comfortably sit there. It has two ISOFix/three rear tether child seat restraint points, but really only space for two car seats. The central seat folds down as an arm rest with two shallow cup holders suitable for slim bottles only, it does have grippy sides but tall drink bottles would most likely fall over. The drink bottle storage in the rear door cubbies is an adequate size for larger drink bottles, but it is not moulded so they may move around and if you want to use them you have store the wireless headphones somewhere else.
My children told me that the wireless headphones worked well, but they were disappointed with the operation of the optional ($4,150) 11.4” Rear Seat Entertainment screens as they only offered basic navigation with just the suburb and street shown and no actual maps to look at. Also, the only media source available for the screens was HDMI and according to my tech savvy son there are only a few devices that support HDMI and can be powered by a 5V USB-C port, so in his view the screens were rather pointless. The HDMI ports are located under the central fold down arm rest and there are two USB-C ports here also. The rear screens also protrude out from the back of the front seat a bit too far and on more than one occasion my children hit their head on the screen when they were reaching down to get something off the floor.
Rear passengers do get 4-way climate control, so individual temp selection for both rear seat passengers with joint for mode and air speed selection that require a hard press to operate the touch control buttons. There are two central vents, plus under seat vents and vents in the roof above the two outer seats, but these ones are noisy. There are manual blinds on rear windows and rubber mats on the floor, but not over the transmission tunnel even though it is not very high.
There is no gesture open boot on this Range Rove Sport, but you can open/close the powered tailgate from button under tailgate, on the key fob and in the cabin. The boot is a good size and can take the weekly shop and there is a rubber mat over the boot floor for carrying the dog or other muddy items, with four substantial tie down points in the boot space, two hooks, two lights, and one 12V socket. The boot floor has a fold up section that can be used as a seat back rest or to compartmentalise the boot space. There are buttons in the boot to lower the rear of the vehicle and to lower/raise the 60:40 split fold rear seats. Under the boot floor there is a full-size spare tyre.
The Range Rover Sport D350 comes standard with a tow ball that is power operated and folds out when you press a button in the boot and it beeps to let you know this is happening. Having a fold away tow ball is handy as you won’t kick your shin on it when it is not in use. Next to the button for this is one for cycling through the trailer’s lights so you can check all the bulbs are working. The Range Rover Sport has a 750kgs unbraked/3,500kgs braked towing capacity with a max ball weight of 300kg.
All new Range Rover Sport variants have a 5-star (2022) ANCAP safety rating with an Adult Occupant Protection score of 85% (32.44 out of 38) and a Child Occupant Protection score of 86% (42.60 out of 49). Dual frontal, side chest-protecting and side head-protecting airbags are standard. For convenience you also get auto lights and auto high beam and auto wipers that more than once came on for me even when the skies were blue. The rear-view camera on the Range Rover Sport has a 360o and 3D view with front and rear parking sensors and this D350 also has a digital rear view mirror.
Active safety includes Blind Spot Assist, Adaptive Cruise Control with Steering Assist, Rear Collision Monitor, and Rear Traffic Monitor. ANCAP tests of the autonomous emergency braking (AEB) (Car-to-Car) system showed GOOD performance with collisions avoided or mitigated in most test scenarios, including AEB Junction Assist where the test vehicle can autonomously brake to avoid crashes when turning across the path of an oncoming vehicle. ANCAP tests of the lane support system functionality showed some GOOD performance in lane keep assist scenarios, and ADEQUATE performance in the more critical emergency lane keeping scenarios.
The new Range Rover Sport comes with a 5 years/Unlimited kilometres warranty with 5 years Roadside Assistance. A 5 years/102,000 kms (whichever occurs first) service plan can be purchased up front for $2,750.
The Range Rover Sport First Edition D350 offers no stress driving, a bit like enjoying a Tyrrell’s 8 Acre Shiraz as you watch the sun set at the end of another day of road tripping adventures. The Range Rover Sport First Edition D350 is priced from $194,829 excluding on-road costs and as tested my Range Rover Sport D350 was priced at $221,248 excluding on-roads. You can build your Range Rover Sport online or visit your preferred Land Rover retailer for more information.
| Pros | Cons |
| The luxury interior | Gloss black elements on the interior trim |
| The comfortable ride | The rear entertainment screens |
| Front massage seats | Noisy operation of the cooled seats |
Photographs by Driven Women Magazine.