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Basically there are two ways to tackle a gravel road. One is to drive slowly and methodically, taking care not to kick up too much dust and pebbles, braking for creatures both great and small while silently reciting cherished poems by Henry David Thoreau. The other way is “Dukes of Hazard” style. Since I was behind the wheel of...




Basically there are two ways to tackle a gravel road. One is to drive slowly and methodically, taking care not to kick up too much dust and pebbles, braking for creatures both great and small while silently reciting cherished poems by Henry David Thoreau.

Photo by James Gaffney/The Times-Picayune

The other way is “Dukes of Hazard” style.



Since I was behind the wheel of the British smoking jacket of luxury large SUVs — the 2011 Range Rover Sport — I really wanted nothing more than give it a royal drubbing. Woe to the foxhounds that fell under my axles.



Accordingly, I set the Terrain Response System to “gravel” and the six-speed transmission to manual shift mode, and began to tear up the 5-mile stretch of unimproved (and, fortunately, rarely traveled) road that stretches from Belle Chasse Highway to the fishing camps of Lake Hermitage. All in an effort to see if this ballyhooed, $68,000 off-road luxe box would choke in the clutch or prove its Anglo metal.



Me: “So, people really take these $70,000-plus vehicles off-road and rough them up in the bush?”


Range Rover PR: “Oh, yeah, all the time.”

Photo by James Gaffney/The Times-Picayune

In so many words, the automaker gave me a license to kill — the Range Rover, that is. So, I proceeded to give my good Sport, as it were, the kind of thorough bushwhacking workout that would make Jeremy Clarkson of BBC’s “Top Gear” proud. Control sliding across wide expanses of gravel during tight turns and then opening the vehicle up on dead-heat straightaways, I tortured the Range Rover Sport’s gearbox and its punchy 5.0-liter V-8 like Torquemada of the Spanish Inquisition. Still no confession. The powerplant didn’t even flinch. This can be credited to the five-passenger vehicle’s permanent four-wheel drive, aided by four-wheel electronic traction control and a two-speed electronic transfer box. Braking was firm and intransigent due to the 15-inch disks with six-piston calipers in front and 14.3-inch disks with single-piston calipers in back.



It wanted to play. So play we did.

Photo by James Gaffney/The Times-Picayune

A potentially deep, muddy section of road came into view, so I set the Terrain Response System knob to “mud ruts” (little pictographs on the driver’s-side instrument panel display the terrain mode setting), slowed my speed and slogged and splashed my way through this temporary obstacle until once again the vehicle was on terra gravel. Switching back the terrain knob, I was good to go.



Perhaps most surprising was how adept the Range Rover handled sudden veers and swerves in the road — including those I intentionally threw in its face. Thanks in part to optional 20-inch wheels and standard double-wishbone suspension and all-terrain dynamic stability control, the Sport fielded everything I threw its way with studied cool.

While there was enough dust and gravel swirling about to qualify as the omnipresent dirt cloud that surrounds Pig Pen from the Charlie Brown comic strip, inside there were all the refinements that make this post-Yuppie denizen of British distinction worth the price of admission.

Photo by James Gaffney/The Times-Picayune

New for this model year, for instance, are cabin material upgrades that add extra swank to the soft-grain leather upholstery and double-stitched door inserts and dash. Ditto for the leather-wrapped steering wheel and shifter knob, as well as the new rakish elegance found in the finessed ebony wood accents of the center stack console trim. In case you dehydrate easily and can’t leave home without a mini-sized water bottle even for a quick tête à tête with your n

Tags: Land Rover, is-featured

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BRIDGE GAME: Range Rover proves its mettle on the road to Lake Hermitage was originally published by New Orleans Auto Reviews: Land Rover. Read the full story by clicking here.