2010 Land Rover Range Rover Sport

The Range Rover Sport, which was introduced in 2005, gets its first significant refresh for the 2010 model year. A new front-end design features a lower grille, new headlamps with LED lights arranged in a Gatling-gun style, a new front bumper, and new front fenders with restyled side vents (the styling clich of the moment).

Inside the 2010 Land Rover Range Rover Sport, there's a new dashboard, new seats (with electrically adjustable side bolsters), new door panels, a keyless ignition, and a new steering wheel with standard shift paddles. To create a richer-feeling environment, the 2010 Range Rover Sport interior has more leather, more padded surfaces, and new ambient lighting.

For 2010, Land Rover scraps its old V-8s (a normally aspirated 4.4-liter and supercharged 4.2-liter). In their place are two 5.0-liter, direct-injected units co-developed with Jaguar. The standard engine makes 375 hp and 375 lb-ft of torque and the supercharged version is rated at 510 hp and 461 lb-ft. Factory-measured 0-to-60-mph times are 7.2 seconds and 5.9 seconds, respectively. Chassis revisions complement the new engines. The brakes in both Land Rover Range Rover Sport models have been upgraded, adaptive dampers are added (for the Supercharged model), and the Terrain Response System adds a new Dynamic mode (which changes throttle and shift mapping, damper firmness, and steering effort).

Land Rover is upgrading its entire range this year, and the 2010 Land Rover Range Rover Sport shares many enhancements with both the Range Rover from which it gets its posh good looks and the LR4 (nee LR3) with which it shares most of its essential underpinnings. (You'll recall, of course, that the senior Range Rover was designed during BMW's ownership on a front strut/rear multilink architecture, while the LR4 and Range Sport lines use control arms fore and aft.) So the electrical architecture upgrade and 5.0-liter V-8 are shared with all, and the new interior is a swankier interpretation of the LR4's general design with a unique, higher center console and more wood. New front and rear styling reinterpret the Range Rover's with a lower, sleeker stance. It shares its new predictive adaptive suspension damping logic, optional 510-horse supercharged V-8, and big honking brakes with Range senior and trumps them both with its own Dynamic Program setting on the Terrain Response drivetrain and suspension control system (2010 Land Rover Range Rover Sport Supercharged models only).

This smaller Range Rover, based on the LR4 platform yet with the panache and features of the Range Rover, receives many of the upgrades and improvements of its big brother. It gets the new 5.0-liter engines (all 5.0-liter-equipped Land Rovers now have 15,000-mile service intervals) and revised transmission, improved suspension and steering, larger brakes, sand launch control, RSC, redesigned interior, Towing Assist, surround camera system, and a new center stack. It still uses real gauges with a five-inch TFT display for the driver, and high-beam assist. On the outside, two-bar side vents and side marker lights help differentiate the 2010 Land Rover Range Rover Sport from the larger Range Rover. Also, for now, the Sport (and Sport Supercharged) are the only Land Rover models to include a new option in the Terrain Response system -- Dynamic Program. This mode, like the others in the system, optimizes suspension and shift points for agility and ride quality. But there's no way an automaker creates something like this without offering it through the rest of the line -- we'd be shocked if it wasn't available on the Range Rover in the next couple of years.