Monday, March 28, 2016

Range Rover Submits to Peer Pressure, Plans a Coupelike Rival to the BMW X6

2015 Land Rover Range Rover Sport SVR

It may be nonsensical, but the BMW X6 has created quite a wake in the waters of the SUV world. Mercedes-Benz jumped onboard the SUV-coupe ship recently with the GLE coupe and GLC coupe models, and now Range Rover wants in on the action. According to Autocar, Land Rover’s next niche model will be a sporty, coupelike SUV that will slot in between the Evoque and the Range Rover Sport.

With more rakish styling and on-road biased performance, this potential Range Rover Sport coupe will venture far afield from Land Rover’s rough-and-tumble heritage. It will apparently share its lightweight aluminum-intensive chassis and overall proportions with the Jaguar F-Pace crossover, which itself is certainly stylish with its long hood and athletic greenhouse. Sharp handling and eye-catching style will take precedence over off-road ability and interior space.

Expect a sumptuous, cockpit-like interior with seating for four, along with a sloping roofline that compromises cargo space. Autocar speculates that the new Range Rover coupe will be closer in size to the smaller BMW X4 and Mercedes-Benz GLC coupe, but that it will carry a price closer to that of the X6 and GLE coupe models, which start at $61,595 and $66,025 in the U.S., respectively.

2015 Land Rover Range Rover Sport SVR

The new Range Rover coupe’s powertrain lineup is likely to roughly mirror that of the current Range Rover Sport [pictured], which comes standard with a 3.0-liter supercharged V-6 and offers both a 3.0-liter turbodiesel V-6 and a 5.0-liter supercharged gasoline V-8 in various states of tune. The coupe-ified Range Rover seems a natural candidate for the high-performance SVR treatment, seeing as both BMW and Mercedes-Benz offer M and AMG variants of the X6 and GLE coupe, respectively.





The new addition to the lineup certainly won’t be Range Rover’s strangest creation—ahem, Evoque convertible—but we’re curious to see what Land Rover’s me-too model can add to the X6 party that hasn’t already been done. We’ll likely have to wait until sometime in 2017 to see the final product.


from Car and Driver Blog http://blog.caranddriver.com/range-rover-submits-to-peer-pressure-plans-a-coupe-like-rival-to-the-bmw-x6/


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