2018 Land Rover Range Rover Sport Review

Like its bigger sibling — that grande dame of luxury SUVs, the regular Range Rover — the Range Rover Sport combines a quiet and luxurious interior with rugged off-road ability. But as its Sport moniker indicates, it also offers sporty handling and on-road performance that can challenge some sport sedans. It can even be equipped with third-row seats to carry a few extra passengers.

The Range Rover Sport does everything in a way that few vehicles can, but it still competes in a crowded segment full of excellent options — depending on your needs. If you can forgo a third row, there's the back-road-blasting Porsche Cayenne, which is in a class of its own when it comes to on-road performance. Like the Sport, quite a few competitors have the option of a third row. Of those, the Volvo XC90 also offers a gorgeously modern cabin and massive cargo space, along with a more generous third row. There's even the body-on-frame Lexus GX, which is in need of a redesign but boasts impressive off-road ability. That's not even to mention the traditional competition from the BMW X5 and the Mercedes-Benz GLE.

Still, if you want to combine luxury, sportiness, and rugged off-road performance, nothing quite competes with the 2018 Land Rover Range Rover Sport.

The 2018 Land Rover Range Rover Sport is a midsize luxury SUV offered in six main trim levels: SE, HSE, HSE Dynamic, Supercharged, Autobiography and SVR. Five-passenger seating is standard, and a power-folding third row that boosts capacity to seven passengers is available on all trims except the SVR. A range engines with varying power outputs are also available.

The 2018 Land Rover Range Rover Sport SE comes standard with supercharged 3.0-liter V6 (340 horsepower, 332 pound-feet of torque), an eight-speed automatic transmission and four-wheel drive. Available as an option — the SE Td6 — is a turbocharged 3.0-liter diesel-powered V6 (254 hp, 443 lb-ft of torque).

Standard features on the SE trim include 19-inch wheels, a self-leveling air suspension with automatic height adjustment for loading and unloading, LED headlights, power-folding heated mirrors, a hands-free liftgate, front and rear parking sensors, and keyless ignition and entry.

Within the cabin, you'll find dual-zone climate control, leather upholstery, power-adjustable front seats, 60/40-split second-row folding rear seatbacks, driver-seat memory settings and a power-adjustable steering wheel. Also standard are a navigation system and an eight-speaker sound system with satellite and HD radio and USB connectivity. The new Touch Pro Duo system combines a 10.2-inch touchscreen infotainment system with a secondary screen for various cabin and vehicle controls where the climate knobs used to be.

To all this standard equipment, the HSE adds 20-inch wheels, foglights, power-folding side mirrors, a fixed panoramic sunroof, perforated leather upholstery, an 11-speaker stereo system, 360-degree parking sensors, 16-way power-adjustable front seats with heating, and upgraded interior trim. There are also added safety features such as blind-spot monitoring, a driver-condition monitoring system, and traffic sign recognition. You can opt for the diesel engine in HSE trim, making it the HSE Td6.

Extra off-road capability is optional at these trim levels via the Off-Road package that adds a low range transfer case. It also provides a suite of software upgrades to the traction control system along with selectable terrain modes. This package is standard equipment on all higher trim levels.

Opt for the HSE Dynamic and you get 40 more hp from the supercharged V6, along with some sporty visual upgrades, 21-inch wheels, steering-wheel-mounted shifter paddles, upgraded interior trim, even better front seats (with 22 adjustments plus ventilation) and a power-sliding sunroof.

The Supercharged trim level adds a supercharged 5.0-liter V8 (518 hp, 461 lb-ft of torque) in place of the standard V6. However, it loses some features compared to the HSE Dynamic, going back to most of the HSE's features while keeping the extra traction control systems and power sunroof. A Supercharged Dynamic is available, which adds the 21-inch wheels, trim upgrades and paddle shifters.

The Autobiography adds flashy 21-inch wheels, turn-adaptive headlights with automatic high beams, various other exterior styling enhancements, soft-close doors, tri-zone climate control, premium leather upholstery, heated rear seats, a heated steering wheel, 22-way adjustable heated and cooled front seats, a configurable digital instrument cluster, a cooler box in the front console, a surround-view camera system, and a 19-speaker Meridian sound system.

The high-performance SVR provides most of the Autobiography's features, adding or substituting SVR-specific 21-inch wheels, more power from the V8 (575 hp, 516 lb-ft), sport-tuned suspension and steering, sportier transmission programming, special interior and exterior styling and trim details, and sport seats.

Many of the standard features on the higher trims are available as options on lower trims. Other options include 22-inch wheels, quad-zone climate control, a refrigerated storage box in the front console, a 23-speaker Meridian audio system, a heated windshield, and a rear-seat video entertainment system. The Drive Pro and Park Pro packages add adaptive cruise control and lane keeping assist and a self-parking system (with both parallel and perpendicular capability, plus automatic space exit), along with features such as blind-spot monitoring and a 360-degree parking sensor on lower trims. A Towing package adds a full-size spare tire and towing hardware along with a system to help you control a trailer's direction while reversing.