2007 Land Rover Range Rover Sport Supercharged

Rover, come over: If you have the bucks, we have the car

Sat, Jun 2nd 2007

Riding the range in style and comfort

If you are seeking a vehicle to move your dogs, family and even your cantankerous father in style and comfort, you will want to consider the Land Rover Range Rover Sport. But be sure to bring along your broker, because the price of luxury is not cheap.

What a hard vehicle to review, since I’m aware that relatively few people are going to fork out more than $70K for a DogCar (models start at $58,000, but the one I drove was $72,000), even one as sublimely dog-errific at this one. To put it mildly: The Range Rover was so nice I wanted to move into it with the dogs because it’s nicer than my house.

The Range Rover is a lot like the Land Rover L3, just … more of it. Bigger, more powerful, more luxurious. This was proven when my father, who can be quite grumpy, declared the Range Rover to be the most comfortable car he’d ever been in.

So how was it as a dogmobile? Top rate. Room for crates and more inside, roof rack for gear outside. It is supremely comfortable on the highway and no doubt more than capable in the fields. Although honestly, how rich would you have to be to willing to sacrifice such a gorgeous vehicle to the off-road driving? In my own car, I’ve creped along the gravel road on our field-training grounds listening to blackberry vines gouging stripes in the sides of my aging Plymouth Voyager. Would I ever put a true luxury car in such a position? Unlikely, but then, maybe someone else would. And they will truly enjoy the lush leather seats and seat warmers as they bounce across the dusty outback.

Bottom line: If you want to move yourself and your dogs (and maybe your crabby father) in the most gorgeous of off-road capable vehicles and money/fuel economy is no issue, here you go: Get a Range Rover.

-- Gina Spadafori

Carguy Comments: The Range Rover Sport Supercharged is equipped with a powerful 4.2-liter V8, delivering 390 horsepower. With a cargo area of 71 cubic feet, the Sport Supercharged edition also has an impressive towing capacity of 7,716 pounds. You can even program the remote key fob to raise and lower the vehicle to make trailer connections easy.

For freeway driving, the Range Rover Sport also offers adaptive cruise control that automatically slows down the vehicle to maintain a safe distance with the vehicle ahead.

-- Keith Turner, The Family Car