Higher bumper, flatter front
The Range Rover Sport was Land Rover’s first attempt in 2004 to further exploit the already magical name Range Rover. The ‘small’ Range Rover received a significant facelift in 2009, with a major overhaul of the front and interior in particular.
The Range Rover Sport is of course not small at all, but it is if you compare it with the ‘real’, large Range Rover. It is also only in comparison with that mastodon that the name ‘Sport’ means something, because the hefty and very heavy Sport (even a TDV6 already weighed more than 2,400 kg) is not very sporty. That does not matter, because Land Rover succeeded in its intention to appeal to a new, different and somewhat younger target group with this model. The Range Rover Sport entered its third generation earlier this year and has become an integral part of the Land Rover range.
The original 2004 model is unmistakably a Range Rover, but also unmistakably slightly different from a regular one. With its high shoulders and somewhat flatter front and rear windows, it undoubtedly looks more dynamic. The characteristic orange introduction color also contributes to the younger image, although in practice we saw it mainly in moody blacks and grays.
The facelift of the first Range Rover Sport appeared in 2009. Before that, he had already been fitted with taillights with white indicators and towards the end of his career in 2012, another version appeared with some minimal changes, but only in 2009 did the car really go under the knife. As with the large Range Rover, Land Rover opted for a different combination of headlights and grille. The grille is as high as the headlights from 2009 and as a whole the combination is further flattened. The front bumper continues optically downwards and also connects in a different way to the front screen, which is also new. From the facelift, that screen also contains a differently shaped cooling opening behind the wheel arch, against the front door.
2004
2009
At the rear, new LED taillights are the biggest news. Yet there is more to it, because at the same time the rear bumper is smoothed out in 2009. With different colors and new wheels, the ‘Sport’ looks fresh all around. The interior is not forgotten and is undergoing a small metamorphosis. Land Rover removes a lot of buttons and manages to cluster the remaining copies in such a way that the interior of a later copy looks tidy and fairly modern to this day.
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– Thanks for information from Autoweek.nl