Land Rover is Looking into a Sportier Discovery Sport

Land Rover Discovery Sport (Credit: © Land Rover)

Land Rover is currently going through some massive changes, as the brand is reorganizing its entire lineup to fit within three main verticals: Discovery, Range Rover and Defender. The Discovery vertical debuted this year with the introduction of the Discovery Sport, which will replace the aging LR2 here in the U.S.

But it appears as if we are soon to see a sportier version of the Discovery, according to an interview Murray Dietsch, Land Rover’s director of programs, gave to Car Advice. During this interview, Dietsche said that the Disco Sport isn’t an “outwardly sporty vehicle,” but that he’d like to make it sporty if the market allows.

Deitsche also let buyers know that if such a model makes it to the market that they shouldn’t expect a super-powerful gasoline engine under the hood. Rather, he said the likely powerplant would be a torque-happy diesel with around 250 horsepower. This would satisfy Land Rovers’ European clienteles’ need for fuel economy while also giving the model acceleration numbers to compete with the likes of the Audi SQ5.

Deitsche also stated that he would like to see all three of the Land Rover verticals have a “performance” model, but they must fit in with each vertical’s personality. Specifically, the Discovery must be versatile and ready for general use, the Defender must be able to handle tackling serious off-roading, and the Range Rover must be luxurious.

The best way to for Land Rover to approach adding performance models to each of its verticals is to use the SVR name in the same manner Mercedes does with AMG and BMW does with the M brand. In this type of setup, Land rover would have its base models to fit the needs of the general public and one wild model at the top that still holds the general values of the base models. If Land Rover sees these performance models as good business sense, then look for an SVR version atop each of the three verticals.