The Range Rover will get new petrol engines and a mild facelift next spring, followed 18 months later by a new 250bhp Td8 diesel and revised four-wheel-drive system. Many of these improvements have been developed for the new Discovery and its sporty five-seat variant, dubbed Range Rover Sport.
The Range Rover facelift, codenamed L322, will introduce a near-400bhp flagship model using Jaguar’s supercharged V8. At the same time, Range Rover will drop the BMW-sourced 282bhp 4.4-litre V8 for the new Discovery’s 295bhp 4.4-litre V8.
The £70k supercharged model will be the quickest-ever production Range Rover, with 0-60mph being reached in around 7.0sec and a top speed nudging 150mph.
Because the RR’s 3.0-litre BMW diesel is a highly competitive unit, it will continue in the Range Rover and won’t be replaced by the Discovery’s new TdV6.
However a second technical update, timed for late 2006, will introduce an additional oil-burner: a 4.0-litre V8 turbodiesel that’s a bigger-capacity version of the TdV6.
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