Range Rover 'Ultimate': £150k flagship spied

Stretched Rangie with four tailpipes hints a flagship version is on the way, marrying supercharged power with ultimate luxury

    The camouflage masking on this Range Rover Long Wheelbase doesn’t hide anything of note – it’s the four exhaust pipes we’re interested in. Jaguar Land Rover only fits four tailpipes to a car when it’s running supercharged V8 power, and the current Range Rover LWB in 5.0-litre supercharged guise doesn’t have visible tailpipes.

    That small detail hints what we’re looking at here is a new Range Rover ‘Ultimate’, powered by the 542bhp engine from the Range Rover Sport SVR and Jaguar XFR-S.

    Plumbing a 542bhp V8 into a luxury long-wheelbase 4x4 might seem like madness, but this car isn’t going to be about Nürburgring-shredding performance. Instead, Land Rover is coming good on its promise of pushing the iconic Range Rover into ever more luxurious territory. 

    The last Range Rover spawned a £120,000 Autobiography Ultimate Edition with exclusive wheels, paint finishes and bespoke interior trim. Marrying Jaguar Land Rover’s headline engine to its most opulent car would create a new Range Rover flagship that could cost as much as £150,000. The current 503bhp V8 version costs from £105,840.

    The aluminium-bodied Range Rover Long Wheelbase treats rear-seat occupants to an additional 186mm of rear legroom versus the regular variant. You can specify individual reclining rear seats, an on-board home cinema system and bespoke interior treatment fitting of a rival to the long-wheelbase Mercedes S-Class, Audi A8 and Porsche Panamera. 

    All of the aforementioned German limos offer very fast V8 and V12 versions, and it’s expected Land Rover will join in the fight in mid-2015. Aston Martin’s new Lagonda super-saloon has also demonstrated to red-hot demand for high-powered British luxury cars from wealthy Middle Eastern buyers in particular.

    Based on how fast the 503bhp Range Rover Long Wheelbase already is, expect the 542bhp ‘Ultimate’ version to be capable of 0-62mph in a thoroughly inappropriate sub-5.5 seconds, and run on to 140mph.