Mad Range Rocks The 'Ring

The good ol' Range Rover. Preserve of hip-hop stars, dubious politicians and royalty. And now, it's been deemed the SUV King of the Nürburgring.

The Range Rover Sport SVR lapped the circuit in 8 minutes and 14 seconds, making it the fastest production car of its kind. According to Land Rover, the feat was achieved by a factory driver testing a standard example. It sounds raucous, as you'll hear in the video below.

http://youtu.be/Vbcw5RFAU_Q

Powering the brute is an uprated version of Jaguar Land Rover's existing five-litre supercharged V8 engine, tuned to produce 404kW. Its makers said the handling characteristics were honed on the track. But we all know the consequence yielded by that endeavour: an unforgiving ride in the real world. Let's hope they endow it with suspension trickery to give it the characteristically dignified ride of a normal Range.

They're also adamant that the SVR hasn't totally relinquished Land Rover's famed off-road ability in the process of becoming a ballsy track machine. For example, it'll still have an 850-millimetre wading depth and high and low gear ratios.