Range Rover Sport D350 Autobiography - long-term review

It’s too nice for these urchins. That’s my prevailing thought as I show our two delightful children – with a combined age very much still in single figures – around this near-£120k Range Rover Sport.

Not only is it too nice for them, but it’s also too nice for where we live. Where we live isn’t bad, mind, but we reside in the countryside, where there is mud and where there are floods, and a red Range Rover Sport, on black 23in wheels, sporting a white leather interior, very much looks like it does not belong. The SUVs round here are in darker, more subtle colours, on smaller wheels with thicker sidewalls, and do things with tow bars. Whereas this new interloper screams DFL, aka the derogatory Down From London.

This RR Sport is oh so close to original launch spec though, which tells you all you need to know about how JLR wants to position this SUV among its Range Rover/Defender/Discovery ilk. The rest are displayed on JLR’s website in muted tones, whereas the Sport is there in shouty Firenze Red.

As well as that visual separation, the Sport has a very clear place in the Range Rover range. The clue is in the name, and it’s the only one overtly honed for performance. Question is, does sitting on the same hulking MLA-Flex platform as the Range Rover Proper (for all the benefits it brings, from refinement and the latest chassis tech to the imminent option of full BEV) handicap it? We’ll find that out in the coming months, but first, that price…

The Sport starts at £83,630, near enough £30k above the Velar but £20k below the ur Range Rover. If you stick with the entry level SE spec – and JLR definitely does not want you to do that – then only the D300 diesel is available. Dynamic SE is but a tempting £3k more, to which the main upgrades are different wheels, plus body coloured bumpers and sills, and the option of D300, P400 petrol and P460e plug-in petrol powertrains.

This one though, has arrived in full Autobiography trim, which is £10k more than Dynamic SE, and means 21in wheels become 22s, the fixed panoramic roof now opens, the Meridian sound system is now ‘3D’, the ‘Windsor’ leather is swapped for softer ‘Semi-Aniline’, the front 20-way electric heated seats gain two extra movements, and a massage system, while all seats bar the fifth one also get a ventilation function. Autobiography also opens up the option of a punchy P550e plug-in, and the engine we’ve got, the D350 diesel, with 347bhp, and 516lb ft from 1,500-3,000rpm.

It's £100,920 as a starting point, to which this long-termer has Firenze Red paint (£895), the aforementioned 23s (£1,100), the associated full-sized spare (£1,060) and the Black Exterior Pack (which is £1,450, and replaces natty bronze detailing with the much better black trim you get on a boggo Sport…). Add in around £10k of extras inside – which we’ll cover in future reports – and suddenly you’re at £117,385, once taxes and other annoyances have been paid.

At that price, you can pretty much have any JLR SUV, your pick of Porsche’s Cayenne range, and a whole lot more besides. The next few months will see if this Range Rover Sport is worth it.