Well of course I get weirdly aroused by a beautiful automobile, just like any other red blooded bastard. But the 2014 Range Rover Sport Supercharged is the first thing I've driven in a long time that I'm pretty sure is going to get me arrested one way or another.
The sense of physical and emotional power the vehicle radiates is palpable. "Dear Divine Maiden-Of-Solihull," I found myself whispering into the heated steering wheel, "you're so fast, so stable, and so supremely effective off-road. Everything's so elegant, the infotainment screen is so intuitive..."
"Of course I'll cash in my 401(k) to make the down payment."
"Your swan-diving depreciation means nothing to me."
"No repair bills will come between us."
"I..."
"I love you."
And that was before we got out of the parking garage.
At a pace that may or may not have been a higher multiple than the speed limit, the SUV still has more juice than you know what to do with. It just tortures you with the prospect of infinite satisfaction like damn a four-wheel drive dominatrix.
That last time I got that kind of sensation it cost me five hundred bucks in the back room of a Hamburg strip club, and involved exactly as much black leather as this Range Rover Sport's interior is swathed in.
As to whether that's a positive or eventually annoying attribute in a car, I'll have to get back to you after I've lived with it for a few days.
I'll already admit this first-impression honeymoon might have something to do with the fact that I'd spent ten hours in the cheap seats of a trans-equatorial airliner just before driving this Rover, and three weeks prior to that folded into a SsangYong pickup truck.
But with about a hundred miles behind the wheel of the Range Rover Sport Supercharged, I can tell you:
- Everything inside is just exquisite to touch.
- It accelerates and brakes hard enough to make you wonder why you bother keeping an SL63 AMG in the other garage bay.
- The flappy-paddle shifters slam through all eight gears harder than Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots fighting over the last liter of oil on Earth.
- Transmission is almost as responsive in regular-old "Drive." You'll be riding the breath of god moving passed that RV hogging the left lane before recoiling off the go-pedal like you'd just spilled the contents of Pandora's Box.
- Exhaust note is mean enough to raise hackles at a stoplight, not so garish as to offend grandma when you take her out for brunch.
- Hood and fender vents look cool in photos, look (and feel) like shithouse self-adhesives from AutoZone in person.
- Sport seats fit your body like Gerard Butler's Spartan armor in 300; and make you feel just as tough.
- Lovely human-machine interface with tidy controls and clean graphics...
How great is that seatbelt display?
- ...until you try the backup camera. Resolution will blow you away if your benchmark for visual fidelity is Game Boy Camera.
Seriously, you wouldn't even post dicpics in an AOL chat room with a webcam this crappy.
Over the next few days I'll be evaluating the hell out of this beauty the way a Range Rover Sport is mean to be used: Loading the cupholders with eight-dollar smoothies, antagonizing late-model German sedans at stoplights, and taking grandma (whose generous allowance lets me live my life like a Tumblr blog) out for brunch.
Kidding, relax. We'll wring it out properly soon enough.
Now tell us what else you want to know about it, and what you want to see on this thing!
Images by the author