Car News

386kW 2018 Land Rover Discovery SVX Revealed… here late in 2018

12 Sep 2017

Paul Horrell 7

The 2018 Land Rover Discovery SVX has been revealed, the first Land Rover to carry the SVX moniker, it’ll arrive in Australia late in 2018.

LISTEN UP, EXTREME off-road fans. Wealthy ones anyway. This is the Discovery SVX, one of the most capable production Land Rovers ever built. If you want more than this, you’d need a massive aftermarket spree.

It’s got significant modifications to the powertrain, chassis and tyres – so significant that it doesn’t seem too OTT that an integrated rear-mounted winch is standard eqipment.

As standard, it gets Jaguar Land Rover’s supercharged V8 petrol engine, setup here for a swamp-annihilating 386kW, backed up by 625Nm of torque.

The eight-speed transmission is now operated by a vertical-grip lever in place of the normal Discovery’s rotating drum selector. It’s said to give easier control when you’re being thrown about by rough terrain. As usual for the Discovery the transmission adds a low-ratio transfer box too. The centre diff is active and so is the rear one (only an option on the regular Disco).

To complete the powertrain job there’s been a retuning of the thresholds for the traction and descent controls and the various Terrain response modes.

Next up the suspension. Headlining is a new electro-hydraulic Active Roll Control (H-ARC) system. It uncouples the anti-roll bars for more off-road articulation, but brings them back into play to control roll on the road. On the tarmac you’ll certainly want all the control you can get of this 386kW animal.

Land Rover says H-ARC is new to the Discovery, which is true for this generation. But Range Rovers have had something similar, and there was a rudimentary gadget to do the same job on the Mk2 Disco in 1998.

Ground clearance and approach and departure angles are significantly up over standard. The suspension is raised and has longer-travel dampers, getting new knuckles to keep the geometry in order. Beneath them are 20-inch forged wheels running 275/55 R20 Goodyear Wrangler all-terrain tyres. Their rolling diameter is a stout 815mm.

Extra underbody and sill guarding is of course fitted. At the front and rear, pained orange to put you in mind of the G4 Challenge cars, are tow eyes rated at six tonnes apiece.

The rear bumper is completely revised to make way for the integrated winch. Meanwhile, on top of windscreen are banks of slimline but blazing LED lights. Land Rover calls the paint Tectonic Grey, and the bonnet is anti-glare matt.

We don’t have word on prices yet, but it goes into production early in 2018 and will launch in Australia towards the end of 2018.

The SVX name means it’s a product of Jaguar Land Rover’s Special Vehicle Operations division. Other products by this skunkworks include the fast SVR vehicles (Jaguar F-Type and Range Rover Sport) and the luxury SVAutobiography (Range Rover). Oh and SVO builds armoured vehicles too.

Meanwhile at the other end of the Discovery range, LR has announced a new 2.0-litre petrol engine model. Doesn’t sound much, but with a turbo and 224kW it shouldn’t be a complete struggler provided you’re not into towing heavy trailers up daunting hills.