A GOOD SPORT

The 2023 Range Rover Sport SE P360 looks the part for those who aremt tempted by more powertul models.

- Ezra Dyer

Chipotle—or, as my family calls it, Taco Bell with some book learnin’’—has an ingenious menu. There’s really only one dish, but the fast-food chain presents the basic ingredients in so many ways that a veneer of individuality disguises the homogeneity. The same can be said of Land Rover’s lineup, which stuffs the same fillings into different wrappers. You want a six-cylinder all-wheel-drive SUV? Have a Range Rover Velar, which looks like a smaller Range Rover Sport, which is a slightly smaller Range Rover, which is like a fancier Discovery, which is a more polished Defender. In this analogy, the Discovery Sport is a lifestyle bowl, and the Evoque is a quesadilla off the kid’s menu.

The Range Rover Sport is a staple of the company’s SUV menu. The prior generation enjoyed a nine-year run without aging into dowdiness, which is probably why Rover decided, for the 2023 redesign, to keep it looking pretty much the same. The new Sport’s headlights are squintier, but the overall shape is so similar to the previous model that you’d have to park them alongside each other to figure out what changed. The main giveaway is the new power-operated flush door handles, which contribute to the slick looks and slippery 0.29 coefficient of drag.