New York show: Range Rover Sport teased

THE next-generation Range Rover Sport will be revealed later this month with a ‘live drive’ through the streets of Manhattan that will be streamed online.

Land Rover has confirmed that the online reveal of the all-new Sport on March 26 will come the day before the vehicle’s debut at the New York motor show.

An Australian launch for the new model is anticipated towards the end of this year.

A statement from the Indian-owned British marque said that the drive through the streets of Manhattan was significant given that New York was the Range Rover Sport’s largest market and is the best-selling Land Rover model in America.

Land Rover global brand director John Edwards said that second-generation Sport will be a leap forward for the brand.

“The all-new Range Rover Sport takes the model to another level,” he said. “It is Land Rover’s most dynamic vehicle yet and showcases the best of British design, engineering and technological innovation.”

While technical details are scarce, the second-generation Sport will be based on the same Premium Lightweight Architecture (PLA) platform as the newly-released Range Rover that uses a riveted and bonded aluminium monocoque for improved weight reduction.

News of the new Sport comes hot on the heels of the local release of the Range Rover line-up that went on sale last month.

The current-generation Range Rover Sport was released in Australia in August 2005 and has seen a number of upgrades since then, including the addition of new petrol and diesel engines from the Jaguar XF in the 2010 update.

Despite its age, Australian sales of the Range Rover Sport have remained steady, with a solid 1728 units shifted last year, just shy of the Land Rover Discovery on 1992 sales, while the Evoque was the top-selling model for the brand with 2496 sales.