If you want to climb over boulders while eating caviar on a cracker, this is your ride. Later, you might even want to drag race a Camaro while taking a short-cut across a creek bed.
The Range Rover, Land Rover’s top-dog luxury SUV, is so coveted by owners these days that your best chance of snagging one is placing an order and then setting your alarm for next spring.
According to a report this week by Cars.com, the average Range Rover spends only about nine days on a dealer’s lot, making it one of the fastest-selling vehicles on Earth. What makes this extraordinary is that the new Range Rover has been out for two years, while the cars at the top of the fast-selling list — like the just re-designed 2015 Toyota Camry and 2015 Ford Mustang — have barely hit the ground. The Range Rover has reached such heights of popularity by being several things at once: an all-terrain SUV, a virtual limousine and a rocket ship. When all that comes wrapped in the same sheet metal, well, what more is there to want?
The Range Rover is the top dog in the Land Rover SUV line.James Vandermerwe, general manager at Chattanooga Porsche, Jaguar, Land Rover, let us test drive a new Range Rover Supercharged last week, one of the first Range Rovers he has received that wasn’t pre-ordered by a customer. Our Santorini Black tester comes with Land Rover’s potent 510-horsepower supercharged engine. The base engine is a supercharged V-6 that makes 340 horsepower.
Don’t be confused by the over-lapping “Rover” names. The Range Rover is is the flagship SUV of the British Land Rover brand, known for its rugged, pricey — and extremely trendy — SUVs. Our supercharged V-8 tester has a lofty sticker price of $112,690. The cheapest Range Rover is $84,225, before options. A special autobiography edition Range Rover starts at $137,675 for those who require the big-boy V-8 along with “extended interior trim and veneer palettes.” (That’s the automotive equivalent of a better wine list.) There are even pricier long wheel-based versions of the V-8 Land Rovers that, when fully optioned, can tickle $200,000.