Land Rover Could Be Preparing A Stripped-Out Range Rover Sport SVR

The Range Rover Sport SVR is already one of the fastest, most powerful performance SUVs on the market. But word has it that Land Rover could be working on an even more extreme version.

“We have plenty of stripped-out Range Rover Sport SVR mules that have only two seats and a roll cage,” the vehicle’s lead engineer Ben Verrecchia told Motoring. “I think those cars could provide the basis for an even faster, lighter SVR in the future.”

That would include carbon-ceramic brakes, and a whole lot more – or less, as the case may be. Saving weight would be the name of the game, helping trim precious pounds off the vehicle’s portly 5,093-pound (2,310-kilogram) curb weight.

“I’ve already begun personally campaigning for the introduction of carbon-ceramic brake discs,” said the engineer.

If the vehicle retained the two seats and roll cage in production spec, like Verrecchia mentioned, the stripped-out SUV would follow the lead set by the Jaguar XE SV Project 8. That’d leave it far less utile than the existing version, and leave us wondering what the point would be. But it could help JLR reclaim the Nürburgring lap record for SUVs that the RRS SVR set in 2014 at 8:14.

That time has since been eclipsed by the Porsche Cayenne‘s 7:59 and the Alfa Romeo Stelvio Quadrifoglio‘s 7:51.7. But as Motor1 points out, new arrivals like the Cayenne Turbo S E-Hybrid and Lamborghini Urus might have a thing or two to say about that in the near future.

As might other performance SUVs coming from Jaguar Land Rover Special Operations. The division is preparing to roll out similar versions of the Jaguar F-Pace and Range Rover Velar, either of which could end up showing up their big brother – whether it keeps its seven seats, or trims down to just two.