By: Henrie Geyser


Cruise by in the opulent grandeur of this superwagon and your neighbours, colleagues, friends and chums at the golf club will get the message loud and clear that escalating fuel costs, high interest rates, rapid inflation and other petties such as forking out more than R1-million for a set of wheels, are well within your means.

And yes, you might pooh-pooh their allegations that you are filthy rich and you might say, quite humbly, that after all, chaps, the Range Rover is just another set of wheels.

But in your heart you will know that the Range Rover you happen to own is not just another car, of even just another Range Rover, for that matter. It's the flagship, the ultimate automotive status symbol instantly recognised and much loved by the wealthy the world over.

Driving a Range Rover which has the “Supercharged” badge stuck on the boot lid is a bit like wearing a placard round your neck saying: “I've just won the Lotto”, but still a lot less over the top than driving a Rolls-Royce, Maybach, Bentley or one of those flashy Italian super sports cars.

Yummy mummies love to drive these Range Rovers on the school run for their cocooned safety; trophy wives, toy boys and most of the rest of the world drive them to be seen and envied; lesser endowed and small statured men firmly believe it adds extra inches; and genuine outdoor aficionados love them for their comfort, style, quality tar and gravel cruising and amazing off-road abilities.

The critics (most of them greenly envious and of lighter wallets) tend to wax forth about all big leisure and pleasure vehicles as being gas-guzzlers, road and parking space invaders, contributors to road deterioration and weapons of mass psychological bullying of smaller cars on the road.

They are also quick to point out that, capable as they might well be, few of these vehicles are ever actually taken off the road. Judging by the number of gleamingly immaculate SUV's one sees in urban shopping centre parking lots and on pavements outside gyms, restaurants and snooty schools, they have a point.

But grumble as much as they like - the one thing even the worst critics can never deny is the sophisticated stylishness, the leathered comfort and the amazing driving pleasure one gets from hitting the road in the ultimate Range Rover.

With its typically box-like shape, even rounded off and neatly finished on the outside, and for all its class, it still clearly is a Sports Utility Vehicle.

But actually, it is classier than most seriously expensive super saloons.

On the very long list of super fixtures you will find soft, heated leather-covered armchair-sized seats, a 14-speaker digital surround sound system, fully adjustable climate control, 7-inch touch-screen, satellite navigation, Bluetooth phone technology, rear view camera when reversing, (take a deep breath and read on) heated, fully adjustable leather steering wheel with audio adjustments, a message centre and trip computer with selectable speed limit warning, an entire Parliament of airbags, seats, mirrors and sunroof that are all push-button electronic affairs with extensive memory settings… and so the list just goes on and on.

Not that one would expect anything less if you sign a cheque of well into the R1-million territory.

We didn't bother with sophisticated speed and acceleration tests, but it goes without saying that with its 4.2-litre supercharged V8 at full trot, the Range Rover flies like a Japanese bullet train.

In the city and at legal speed limits it ticks over quietly but if you are running late for the airport and you need to make up a few minutes, it will roar with delight and get you there quicker than most.

The six-speed auto box (which can also be used as a quick-change manual shift) is as smooth as silky underwear and in spite of its weight and height, its big 20-inch chrome alloys, permanent 4-wheel drive with torque-sensing centre differential, smart air suspension, dynamic stability control and traction control provide superior protection against sudden surprises through the twisties.

In fact, I was totally knocked out by the way the Range Rover behaved through the corners. Impressive is putting it mildly.

Ditto the brakes. I thought dragging this broad, high and heavy vehicle to a quick halt from high speed would be a mission. But that's before I had the pleasure of meeting up with the Range Rover's mighty superior Brembo brakes with electronic brake force distribution which effortlessly slammed it to a halt all the way from 100km/h in seconds. Several times. Without any hint of fade.

I have seen glints of respect in the eyes of tough and tanned off-road chaps when they speak about the Range Rover's capabilities in the dirt and this time round I put it to the test myself.

Well, I'll keep it short: the independent electronic suspension, hill descent control, the high and low gear ratios and its smooth, strong and steady power input gives this vehicle the amount of guts and the grip that many offroaders half its size and ten times its reputation would envy.

The Range Rover is spacious inside and big outside so it's understandably a little awkward to squeeze in and out of tight parking spots, but with its good visibility and light steering one quickly gets the hang of it.

In these yawningly boring politically correct days it might seem a touch naughty to own something as big, brash and blatantly expensive as the Range Rover Supercharged, but you know what, driving a Ferrari, Porsche or Beemer M is probably not all that much more environmentally and socially friendly.

In any case, how far will a Ferrari take you in the swamps and sands of Botswana?

[30 Jul 2008 15:19]

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