Land Rover tease new Range Rover Sport R / RS – debuts at Goodwood (video)

The most powerful Land Rover to date – the Range Rover Sport R (or RS) – is teased on video ahead of a debut at the 2014 Goodwood Festival of Speed.

The idea of a more powerful Range Rover Sport – complete with the 542bhp version of the supercharged V8 from the Jaguar XJR and F-Type Coupe – has been around for quite some time, but it’s about to become a reality.

Land Rover has revealed a teaser video for the new Sport R – which really shows no more than the spy video of the Sport R we had a year ago – but it does herald the imminent arrival of the new Sport R at the Goodwood Festival of Speed this month.

With the 542bhp V8 Supercharged under its bonnet, the Sport R is likely to get much closer to the performance of the Porsche Cayenne Turbo, with a 0-62 mph likely to be well under 5 seconds.

But even more power in a big off-road SUV means more than just tweaking its brain (or it does if you want it to handle and stop) so Land Rover are not just turning up the wick and adding a more sporty body kit, but they will also be tweaking the Sport’s air suspension for a sportier on-road performance and fitting brakes more capable of slowing 542 rampant horses.

But what we still don’t know is what this new more powerful Range Rover Sport will be badged as. Will it be the Range Rover Sport RS, as we originally thought, the Sport R or even – as Jaguar Land Rover now has a Special Operation Division – the Range Rover Sport SO?

With a debut at the Goodwood Festival of Speed this month, it’s likely the Range Rover Sport R (or whatever it end up being called) will be in Land Rover showrooms in early 2015 at a price that could well be the wrong side of £100k.