Shameless social climber

When I first heard about the Range Rover Sport -- a low-slung performance SUV from the Wellie-wearing stalwarts at Land Rover -- I had to engage the traction control on my gag reflex.

Oh, please. It’s one thing if dollar-drunk pro athletes and celebs want to slam their Range Rovers with 22-inch wheels, plastic aero petticoats and belly-scraping suspension mods, and in the process give these amazing off-roaders the engineering equivalent of a lobotomy. It’s quite another for Land Rover to pander to this audience with a factory “sports tourer.”

Yes, of course, sports car legend Porsche traded away in Faustian fashion a part of its soul to build the Cayenne, and the brand survived. And, yes, Bentley is rumored to be planning an ultralux SUV (based on the Cayenne/VW Touareg platform). Even Maserati -- recently resurrected as a fit and proper GT marque -- may pull a spiritual U-turn and build an SUV, the Kubang.

But as a brand, the rhino-tough Land Rover is more fragile than all of these. This is the vehicle of Serengeti game wardens and U.N. relief workers and Prince Charles surveying his vast holdings -- and I don’t mean Camilla.

What is a Land Rover product if it is not absolutely dominant off-road? I’ll tell you what: a big, fat station wagon.

These dyspeptic and uncharitable thoughts were with me right until the moment I saw the new Range Rover Sport climb a wall.

It was during a media test-drive event last week, in the canyon country outside Moab, Utah. Personally, I didn’t think it could be done. No way, I thought, could the Range Rover Sport stair-walk up the 15-foot-high, 40-degree sandstone incline that the Land Rover folks proposed we climb -- especially not the Supercharged edition, shod with 20-inch, 40-series speed-rated tires.

I sat down on a ledge and waited for the faux-Rover to founder on the rocks and perhaps spit out festive bits of spanged U-joints.

And yet, without much trouble, one after another of the luxury lorries scrambled up the rock wall. The only casualty of the day was the scuffed chrome exhaust tips of an S/C model, which gives up a couple of degrees of departure angle compared with its normally aspirated sibling. No worries, mate.

For those just tuning in, the five-passenger Range Rover Sport is a glamorized and urbanized version of Land Rover’s outstanding frontiersman, the seven-seat LR3. Situated in the product lineup between the LR3 and the flagship Range Rover, the Sport neatly hybridizes the attributes of both. From the LR3 it takes its Terrain Response system, the height-adjustable air springs, the double-wishbone suspension and the hardiest of full-time, four-wheel-drive systems. The Sport also shares the LR3’s steel unit-body-on-frame architecture, as well as its weight. More on that later.

From the Range Rover, the Sport borrows a duo of Jaguar-derived V8s: a naturally aspirated 4.4-liter (300 horsepower) or a 4.2-liter supercharged version of the same engine (390 hp). Both engines bolt up to a six-speed automatic/manual ZF transmission.

The Sport is slightly less than the LR3 in overall length (188.5 versus 190.9 inches) and wheelbase (108.0 versus 113.6 inches) and height (71.5 versus 74.1 inches), though the Sport’s floating-roof design (the roof pillars are blacked out) and trailing-edge spoiler make the vehicle look like a hovercraft next to the upright and blocky LR3. (I wonder how many children have flagged down a white LR3 in an attempt to buy ice cream?)

Even though it’s the smallest of the trio, the Sport is the most space-efficient: It has more legroom and nearly as much head, shoulder and cargo room as the much-larger Range Rover. Despite these measurements, Land Rover execs suggest that the Sport’s interior is more intimate than the Range Rover, perhaps because the windshield is closer to the driver and the canted center console is narrower and closer at hand. In any event, both front- and rear-seat passengers will find plenty of room to spread out.

Another odd tale of the tape: Because of its provenance as sibling to the LR3, the Sport -- the poison-tip street rod in the company quiver -- actually has better approach and departure angles and deeper wading depth than the baronial Range Rover.

In two days of off-road excursions in a variety of hostile terrains, the Sport never seemed at a loss. This wonderful, bears-on-bicycles perversity is brought to you by the numbers 1 and 0. It is only by dint of thousands of lines of algorithmic code -- orchestrating the vehicle’s throttle response, transmission, air suspension, differentials and traction controls -- that such off-road acrobatics are possible in a vehicle weighing more than 5,600 pounds and wearing the tire equivalent of speed skates.

The hive-brain for the Range Rover Sport is, as in the LR3, the Terrain Response system. Using a dial-style controller in the center console, the driver can select from five different terrains -- normal, rock and boulders, grass/gravel/snow, mud and ruts, or sand -- and the vehicle’s computers will optimize settings for the terrain.

For instance, in rock mode, the transfer case drops to low-range four-wheel drive, the air suspension raises the vehicle to its maximum ground clearance of 8.9 inches, the differential-locking gets very aggressive, and the throttle response goes soft, so drivers can delicately pick their way through geologic debris fields.

For whatever trade-offs there may be in ground clearance (8.9 inches compared with the LR3’s 9.5 inches) and tires, the Sport performs beautifully off road.

But let’s not pull each other’s lederhosen. The only hills the Sport is aimed at are the ones in Beverly. From the moment the Range Stormer concept debuted at the 2004 Detroit Auto Show, its mission was to bling-ify the brand from Old Blighty. Many of the concept car’s styling cues survived: the steeply sloped windshield, the mesh grille, the webbed fender intakes, the flared fenders, lower front air dam, composite whooshes on the rocker panels and, most particularly, huge wheels. Nineteen-inch wheels are standard on the base (HSE) model and 20-inchers gush from the wheel wells of the S/C edition.

This is pretty much a perfect styling execution, a sublime bit of fettling that gives the Sport the look of a cocked-and-loaded Colt Python, its cylinder gravid with magnum shells.

Is it fast? Well, let’s just say “Sport” is a bit of a stretch. The downside of its kinship with the LR3 is weight: 5,468 pounds in the HSE and 5,670 pounds for the supercharged model. That’s fatty-fatty 4x4.

In the HSE, the 300-hp V8 busts a prodigious gut to get to 60 mph in 8.2 seconds. Above about 80 mph, shouts down to the engine room to lay on more coal go unanswered. Passing acceleration is fairly anemic, even with the multiplicity of gears the transmission has access to. In fairness, I did drive this vehicle mostly at mile-high altitudes, which saps horsepower.

Meanwhile, the Sport HSE shares the LR3’s top-heavy handling. Turn the vehicle into a corner at speed and it feels more than a little squirmy as all that weight above-deck shifts, and as cornering loads build, the body lolls with the pendulous mass. If you’ve ever ridden a bicycle while wearing an overloaded backpack, you know how it feels. None of which is remarkable in SUVs, but in a vehicle called Sport, it’s a little disconcerting.

Life is much better in the supercharged vehicle, even at altitude, since superchargers make their own atmosphere. Spur the Sport S/C and it jumps with a whinny from the blower. Zero to 60 mph goes by in 7.2 seconds, and there is plenty more where that came from. Passing power is more than adequate, as is stopping power, provided by enormous front Brembo brakes.

It should be noted, with appropriate irony, that the Range Rover is still slightly quicker than the Sport. As for the Sport S/C being an answering volley to the Porsche Cayenne Turbo: only if the field is distinctly uneven.

The signature piece of hardware for the Sport is what Land Rover calls Dynamic Response, which is essentially an electro-hydraulic stabilizing system -- an active anti-roll bar like that on some BMWs -- that keeps the vehicle body level up to 0.4 g of lateral acceleration. The Dynamic Response system helps cut all the heavy, wet canvas from the rigging, and the Sport S/C handles level and smooth at cornering speeds that would confound the Range Rover.

A side note: When any of the off-road terrain modes are selected, the Dynamic Response anti-roll bars de-couple to allow freer articulation of the wheels.

How long the Sport will keep its advantage in on-road handling over the Range Rover is a matter of conjecture. It seems inevitable that the flagship will also be up-fitted with the smart stabilizer bars. And then, how sporty will the Sport be?

It would have been nice if the Sport’s unit-body could have been tooled up in lighter aluminum, like the excellent Jaguar XJ (a cousin in Ford’s Premier Automotive Group, which includes Land Rover). Off road or on road -- or in stretch pants -- weight is the enemy.

Nor would I have scoffed at 100 extra horses (see sidebar) under the clamshell bonnet.

But I’m far more inclined to forgive such minor bobbles as long as the Range Rover Sport gets the big stuff right. All I ask is that it can climb a wall.

*

2006 Range Rover Sport

Base price: $56,750 (HSE); $69,750 (S/C)

Powertrain: 4.4-liter, 32-valve V8 with variable-valve timing (HSE), or intercooled and supercharged 4.2-liter, 32-valve V8, with variable-valve timing (S/C); six-speed automatic with three-mode manual shift; full-time all-wheel drive with mechanical multiplate center differential with electronic locking (optional locking rear differential)

Horsepower: 300 at 5,500 rpm (HSE); 390 at 5,750 rpm (S/C)

Torque: 315 pound-feet at 4,000 rpm; 410 pound-feet at 3,500 rpm (S/C)

Curb weight: 5,468 pounds (HSE); 5,670 pounds (S/C)

0-60 mph: 8.2 seconds (HSE); 7.2 seconds (S/C)

Overall length: 188.5 inches

Wheelbase: 108.0 inches

Max. towing weight (braked trailer): 7,716 pounds

Ground clearance (standard ride height): 6.8 inches

Ground clearance (off-road height): 8.9 inches

EPA fuel economy: 18 miles per gallon combined city / highway estimated (HSE); 17.5 mpg combined city / highway estimated (S/C)

Final thoughts: Get me to the dirt on time

Contact automotive critic Dan Neil at dan.neil@latimes.com.