Range Rover Evoque Sport planned – new V6 or 300bhp Ecoboost?

It’s reported Land Rover are planning on making a performance version of the Range Rover Evoque – the Range Rover Evoque Sport? – with 300bhp.

The new Range Rover Evoque is a proper success story for Land Rover. They seem to be right on the Zeitgeist with their good-looking little Range Rover – even at premium prices.

The recent arrival of the Evoque on the back of 18,000 advance orders – from buyers who’d never even seen or driven the Evoque – shows just how appealing the right style dynamics are.

We even saw, for a short while, premiums being paid over list for the first Evoques in the UK. That said, those premiums disappeared as quickly as they arrived, so if you want to get in to an Evoque don’t be persuaded to pay over the odds – a bit of research will turn up plenty of Evoques at list price.

But with the success of the Evoque in its three trim levels – Pure, Prestige and Dynamic – and three engine options – 2.2 litre turbo-diesel in 148bhp or 187bhp,  and a 236bhp 2.0-litre turbo Ecoboost – there’s surely room for an Evoque Sport with more power and more road-focused manners?

That speculation has been fuelled this week with David Mitchell, Land Rover’s Evoque program director, telling Autocar that he’s been driving an Evoque with a tweaked and fettled version of the Ecoboost lump in the regular petrol-engined Evoque, and delivering up to 300bhp.

Mitchell is quoted as saying the Evoque chassis can certainly handle the power, although Land Rover are yet to sign-off the Evoque Sport (or whatever they call it). But could the changes be more extensive than just more power?

We know Land Rover are considering adding a fourth Range Rover model to their range, and the clever money is on a stretched Evoque – perhaps the ‘Grand Evoque’ – with more goodies and more room to bridge the gap between the Evoque and the new Range Rover Sport when that arrives.

So perhaps in addition to more power for an Evoque Sport, we could also see the Grand Evoque getting the more powerful EcoBoost lump to row it along more convincingly. It makes sense to capitalise on the Evoque’s success with an extended range, and the Evoque Sport and Grand Evoque are a good way to go.

But will turning up the wick on the EcoBoost lump in the Evoque be the way to go? Perhaps more appealing would be to squeeze the new Jaguar V6 we know is coming in the XE/C-X16 when that arrives? That could deliver power of well over 300bhp, and would turn the Evoque Sport in to a properly compact version of the Range Rover Sport.

Although whether the now quite ancient underpinnings of the Evoque – which is basically a modified Freelander under the skin – can take that much power, we really don’t know.

But whatever engine Land Rover chooses to turn the Evoque in to a mini RRS, it’s all but certain they will.