Gavin Williams puts the Range Rover Sport to the test and gives us a breakdown of exactly what stands out to him about the glorious 4×4:

I had a kick-around with some friends a couple of Sundays ago. I packed everything I needed. Water, deep heat, shin pads, options on shorts and socks. Even a fold-out camping chair for the rolling substitutes. I arrived at the field in the most football car imaginable, the Range Rover Sport and then realised I had left something at home: my football boots.

So I joyfully gunned the car back over the neck from Camps Bay. I guess it’s the kind of silly excuse 20-something millionaire footballers will be coming up with so they have to dash back to Milton Keynes in the Ranger. “Sorry guv, forgot me togs again. Daft I know. I’ll just nip home to get them, like”. And who can blame them, because this is a sheer delight to drive. Projectile quick and smothered in luxury, there’s not many better places to be, perched high above the hoi polloi and the mundane duties of commuterdom.

Jack Wilshere nips home to get his training bib. And possibly have a fag.

You might see a lot of these on the roads, but they still manage to turn heads everywhere, mainly because of the daring design fluency, which sets it apart from say a Merc ML or Beemer X5, which while purposeful, lack a bit of the big Brit’s iron-fist-in-a-velvet glove gracefulness.

Those trademark scoops on the flanks below the A-pillar seem to pivot towards the narrowing angle of the rear windows like canons firing down the straight sill beneath the frameless doors. It’s all glass and metal, megalomania somehow disguised as elegance. Basically, what any designer in this league should be aiming for.

But there’s a problem: why buy this and not the actual Range Rover? Looks-wise it’s a dead heat for me and while the RR Sport is quick, it’s bigger brother is not far behind. There is a certain thrill to planting your foot in something this immense but I promise you will only do that for the first week you have it. It’s immensely fun, but somewhat unsettling. Where the RR Sport does come into its own though, is on-road handling.

Not many people will do this in the Sport, but they really should.

The ride height is lowered at the touch of a button and you can feel arcane technology bristling beneath you as the suspension stiffens in Sport mode. Through the bends you need to disengage your innate understanding of physics, because the Sport just seems to handle almost anything thrown at it, without any fuss at all. No tyre shriek, no leery moments, no feeling of the car using every electronic trick up its sleeve to keep you on the black stuff. It’s all down to genius engineering and independent air-suspension on each corner of the car.

Range Rover has always put its reputation on the line by sending the new Sport on some incredibly punishing tests to prove to us all why you shouldn’t just use this to go to gym and Sandton City. They set an SUV land speed record in a desert and then flogged the thing up the Pike’s Peak (now sadly tarred) hill climb.

A quiet moment of contemplation.

But despite its name, the Sport isn’t all bluster and bravado, despite the wonderful howl from the Petrol V6 version I drove (the same engine, tuned differently, that you get in the cosmically fun Jag F-Type) has a genteel side and driving it out to one of its natural habitats in Franschoek, it was an absolute pleasure driving at any speed or intensity accompanied by the bespoke Meridian sound system. And – I know this might sound trite – but the customary Range Rover arm rest is like a balm for the soul. It just feels right, with your left arm resting gently on it and the road out ahead. This is also the first Range Rover to have a sequential gear shift on the centre console as well as the existing paddle shift gearing, made of chilly aluminium, coupled with a seamlessly great sport ‘box.

Immediately iconic. Range Rover designers have another classic on their hands. Well done lads.

This new Range Rover Sport is half a ton lighter, thanks to it’s aerospace inspired aluminium chassis, which also means you’ll be saving fuel (in relative terms) unless you go for the Supercharged V8 Petrol if you find the whole subject of money rather vulgar. I’m hoping to drive the other variants, but this one seems to make the most sense both on paper and in the real world with it’s “quantum leap forward in fuel efficiency” according to Range Rover’s top engineers.

Given the choice, and probably one I won’t have to make soon, I would still opt for the Range Rover over the Range Rover Sport. It’s slightly less flash and a bit more austere. More like the footballer with the captain’s armband than the neck tattoo. But if you like to be catapulted forwards on a plush leather sofa, and get noticed while doing it, this is the Ranger for you.