Is this the new Range Rover Sport?

Pre-internet, car manufacturers were able to wow the public with new cars with ease. They’d build their model, test it in secret, put it in a shed under a sheet, then pull off said sheet at a motor show to an audience of (hopefully) impressed car fans. But now, with the birth of camera phones, social networks, and an increasingly impatient desire for information, it's tougher to keep things under wraps.

Case in point: the picture above. It is the new Range Rover Sport. A car that manufacturer Jaguar Land Rover wanted to keep a secret until March 26th, where it would officially debut at the New York Auto Show. A car which, in the coming weeks, was presumably going to travel in great secrecy to top secret global locations where worried security details scoured the perimeter for the tell tale glint of a telephoto lens that could ruin the surprise and potentially make a photographer money. 

That was before a window-tinter based in New York decided to post a picture. He was given the job of colouring the windows of a Range Rover Sport for an up-coming TV commercial, and wanted to show his friends. Which he did by posting to a forum… and, not long after, by the magic of the internet, the rest of the world was in on the secret. We've tried to get in touch with the man involved, but to date we've had no answer as to what he thought of the car.

Welcome, then, to what we know so far about the Range Rover Sport. As you can see, its design is a mixture of the two ends of the Range Rover spectrum: a front with the sophistication and purpose of the new Range Rover but with sportier accents at the nose and on the wings, and a rear more curvaceous and Evoque-like – especially in the lights.

Like the previous Sport it also has a more sharply raked roofline as well a shorter rear overhang. We’re guessing it shares the same platform as its bigger brother, and has also probably been on the same weight-loss diet by wearing all-aluminium, bonded and riveted PLA underwear.

Nothing is confirmed on engines, but we imagine that power should come from the same 258bhp 3.0-litre V6 diesel as the new Range as well as a 4.4-litre TDV8 and supercharged 5.0-litre V8 petrol.

Unfortunately there were no pictures of the inside. We’re guessing it’ll follow the outside with a mash-up of Evoque and Range Rover design. But at least you have something to wait for next week when it’s revealed.

So, what do you think of it Internet?