Individualization is very popular in the automotive industry. No matter if it's just the colored tape on the bonnet, a special interior, new brakes or just a few more horsepower: Customers are increasingly enjoying turning their car into something unique - both in the small car and in the high-end -Limousine. Instead of leaving this business to the after-sales market and ingenious tuning companies and accessories suppliers, more and more manufacturers want to record this revenue on their own account - and offer refining measures ex factory. For a good two years, too Jaguar Land Rover with the Department Special Vehicle Operations (SVO) its own "house tuner", which made not least with the Range Rover SVAutobiography. Now SVO passes the slightly sportier Dynamic version of the luxury SUV - for slim 167.000 Euro.
The name SVAutobiography suggests it: this is a mix of highly potent SVR model and luxurious Autobiography equipment in it. 2015 brought the British the top model of the Range Rover on the market, which makes with a whopping 405 kW / 550 horsepower and bearish 680 Newtonmeter torque from a supercharged V8 more than clear announcement. At the same time, however, the 5,20 meter-long top SUV, which is only available with a long wheelbase, relies on the greatest possible luxury: refined interior fittings. Reclining seats in the rear and a noble exterior with two-tone paint are just a few details. "But there were more and more customers who asked for a version with a short wheelbase," says SVO board member Mark Stanton.
A Range Rover Sport SVR - from which the charged V8 incidentally comes - these buyers, however, did not make tasty. "Anyone who wants a Range Rover will never drive a Range Rover Sport," says Stanton. So the SVO engineers sat down, and the concept SVAutobiography transferred to the just under five meters long short version and missed her nickname Dynamic. "The Dynamic is deliberately not an aggressive athlete," emphasizes the head of the special unit. "We prefer to call him Gentlemen Express."
Unlike the pure-bred SVR model of the Sport model, the Dynamic does not start roaring at startup, nor do the adjustable dampers in the exhaust, which leads to a more restrained acoustic performance - as befits a Range Rover. Only under full load of the V8 roars powerful from its five liters of displacement - in which ideally 12,8 liters of premium gasoline disappear. The value is actually approachable in a leisurely drive. But if you decide for the top model, not only wants to be comfortable. If you spur on the little ones, they fight hard, as if there is no tomorrow and catapult the SUV with the nonchalence of a super sports car on Tempo 100. Sure, 5,4 seconds for the standard sprint will create other cars as well. But they are usually light and flat - here is a more than two-ton wall unit in the wind, which is similarly aerodynamic as the Buckingham Palace.
With impressive sovereignty, the SVAutobiography Dynamic takes off, pushing the passengers gently but firmly into the soft padded leather seats with contrasting stitching and never gets tired before being braked at 250 km / h. However, this requires the optional 22 Zöller, with the 21er standard wheels is at 225 km / h final, which is not less fast enough. Conversely, a Brembo brake system with 35 centimeter wheels and red brake calipers ensures that the speed is converted back into heat as quickly as possible. Incidentally, the mass is much more noticeable than when accelerating.
The weight, even the SVR technicians can not talk away and that you can make from the towering colossus no F-Type-like Kurvenräuber, you know in Coventry. If anything, that would only be possible with a board-like vote, which renounces any comfort. "That would not be a Range Rover any more," says Stanton, and so the engineers turned the controls with great sensitivity until finally the best compromise was found: the range was moved eight millimeters closer to the road, the Steering designed more directly and the chassis retuned.
That makes the Land Rover a bit wooden over Gullideckel and bad English roads, but provides noticeably more stability, a better contact with the road and more leeway in the curve - until then at some point the physics speak up, and the battleship the outer curve edge lures. But when the SV section reaches its limits, the autobiography part immediately suffocates any budding disappointment. Who wants to get upset when he's gently massaged into crystal clear high-end sound from the 380-Watt Meridian speakers from the large armchairs? (Michael Gebhardt / SP-X)