Repeated research has shown that merely thinking you’ve got athletic prowess can improve your health. So just imagine what could happen behind the wheel of a Range Rover Sport.
Interestingly, people in Germany firmly believe that Winston Churchill, when asked what his secret was to growing old, answered: “No sports.” Tell that to a Brit and he will probably raise an eyebrow before remarking that, as far as he knows, the former prime minister was a keen sportsman. Churchill was a fencer, a swimmer and a polo player who enjoyed horseback riding until well into his fifties. In later life, he switched to breeding racehorses. One of which, by the way, he named Pol Roger because of his fondness for champagne.
Churchill also had a particular fondness for cars. Land Rover knew this, and for Churchill’s eightieth birthday on November 30, 1954, the automaker presented him with a brand-new Series I. Churchill had the vehicle modified somewhat, enlarging the passenger seat – after all, he was literally and figuratively the “greatest statesman” – and later adding a foot heater and roof. The registration number UKE 80 is a standard Kent issue – Churchill’s home of Chartwell was situated in the county – but it was popularly believed that this was an acronym for United Kingdom Empire and a reference to his age.
Which brings us to the Range Rover Sport. We don’t want to go so far as to say that you will automatically feel like an Olympian at the wheel of this car. Though . . . why not? For the car’s premiere, after all, 007 stunt driver Jessica Hawkins was asked to drive a Range Rover Sport up a 294-meter-long dam spillway in Iceland. A near-vertical wall. Against the thundering masses of water, of course.
We didn’t shoot for anything nearly as death-defying. Our challenge was to treat the city like a multidisciplinary sports field, seeing the Range Rover Sport as a sparring partner for top performance in an urban environment. We snaked our way through narrow construction sites, with genuinely sporty handling provided by the standard all-wheel steering with 7.3-degrees of rear turning for an extremely small turning radius. We also threw ourselves into complex traffic situations to test the Rover’s maneuverability and resilience. The car’s stamina and the smooth operation of the engine were tested during stop-and-go action in the parking garage. Then we examined its performance in a 400-meter sprint on the autobahn and challenged its handling on an obstacle course through the chaos of an inner-city construction site.
Our findings: the Range Rover Sport performed magnificently in all disciplines and completed complex motor skills with flying colors – thanks in small part to the Adaptive Dynamics system, which improves suspension handling by continuously monitoring and analyzing steering and body movement up to five hundred times a second. No wobbles and shakes allowed! As for the driver: the heart rate increased substantially in all exercises such as endurance, strength, speed and coordination, our low blood pressure was up to healthier levels, and we’re thoroughly convinced that driving the Range Rover Sport improved our intramuscular coordination and bone density and significantly lowered our biological age.
At least the opposite has not been proven to be the case.
Text: Jane Doe
Photos: Matthias Mederer/ ramp.pictures
ramp #59
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