A tank fitted with an aeroplane engine – was the verdict of one friend after a passenger ride in the Range Rover SVR.
He was one of four astounded and bemused passengers who stepped from the the special edition Land Rover after a brief country road spin.
And to be fair I am struggling to better that pithy description - although it does massively underplay its athletic prowess and luxurious interior.
It is still a shock how a huge 4x4 which can forge rivers and scale rock faces, can also sprint like a super car.
Fitted with a supercharged V8 5.0-litre petrol engine its 542 bhp can propel this two and quarter tonne machine from 0-60 mph in 4.5 seconds.
It is Land Rover's answer to the bonkers BMW X5 M and the ballistic Porsche Cayenne.
Read more: Barnstorming Range Rover Sport SVR shows off amazing sprinting abilities on road, sand and snow
Designed and built in-house by the firms Special Vehicle Operations (SVO) division they have taken a standard 5.0-litre Sport and finessed it further inside and out.
Where a generation ago Range Rover's were relatively rare and the preserve of the landed gentry, now every school run is packed with them.
But none of them look like the SVR. It attracted close scrutiny all week from both those-in-the-know and casual admirers who recognised it as something special.
Sitting on colossal 22-inch 10 split-spoke wheels (just a £415 option) our test car came certainly presence. Shod in Continental ContiSport Contact 5s they are the first performance road tyres to be fitted to a Range Rover.
With a matt satin Bosphorus Grey optional £6,000 paint job it had the brooding menace of a thunder cloud. Very fitting as it sounds like thunder and goes like lightening.
Pin the accelerator and there is a roar that sounds like a bygone fighter plane pulling up from a dive.
The elevated driving position gives a deceptive perception of speed and it takes a glance down at the speedo to calibrate just how fast you are travelling.
Unique to the SVR are larger air intakes on the revised front bumper, black grilles on front wings, bonnet and nose. Plus a new roof spoiler and a different black rear diffuser shaped around the quad exhausts.
Added to this is a liberal use of SVR badges around the bodywork leaving gawpers in now doubt to its pedigree.
Thanks to that engine it has the go to accompany the show.
It is the same power plant used in the Jaguar F-TYPE R Coupe, there is has been tuned to 576 bhp. Here the wick has not been turned up so high, but it is still over 40 bhp up a normal Sport.
The chassis and suspension have been re-worked to give crisper handling. Although the brakes themselves are unchanged the cooling ducts feeding them have been upgraded to improve performance.
All this adds up to an SUV that will lap the Nurburgring in a stupendous 8min 14sec.
When not tackling race tracks the SVR will swagger along with classical Range Rover effortlessness. The air suspension and sheer mass ironing out any road imperfections.
A 105 litre fuel tank is fitted and it does not take long to see why. Unless you live near the office or have a chunky salary it is the sort of car that could make the work commute a loss-making exercise.
Official figures are 22 mpg on a combined route. But this is not the sort of car owners drive like a hyper-miler to try and match those stats.
Worrying as this is, to some it will just add to the allure. It is not a car to run if you have had to save up to buy one.
Range Rover Sport SVR
Price: £97,780 (£117,580 as tested)
Engine: Petrol 5-litre V8 supercharged
Power: 550 hp
Torque: 680 Nm
0-60 mph: 4.5 seconds
Top speed: 162 mph
Transmission: 8-speed automatic
Brakes: 380mm discs
Dimensions: H – 1.78cm, W – 2.07cm, Length – 485cm
Wading Depth: 85cm
Weight: 2,114kg
CO2: 298 g/km
Consumption: 22.1 mpg combined
Fuel tank: 105 litres
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