Land Rover cinematically revealed its redesigned Range Rover Sport on Tuesday night in Midtown Manhattan, using everything from a live Internet feed to an appearance by the actor Daniel Craig, the reigning Agent 007 in the James Bond film franchise.
The preview event, at the landmark James A. Farley Post Office, included a short film in which the new S.U.V. dramatically made its way to the event, culminating in the vehicle’s arrival with Mr. Craig at the wheel.
While the Academy Awards might not take notice, the Sport’s intensely choreographed introduction was surely one of the more outlandish product reveals at any recent auto show.
Officials at Jaguar Land Rover may have wished the star attraction to be their new luxury S.U.V., which will go on sale as a 2014 model. But the undisputed star of the evening was Mr. Craig, whose three James Bond credits include last year’s “Skyfall,” which featured several vehicles from the Jaguar and Land Rover lineups.
The elaborate short film, shot in New York City weeks before the Sport’s official introduction, depicts a red Range Rover Sport making its way through a Brooklyn shipping yard, into the tunnel beneath Park Avenue near Grand Central Terminal and in bustling city traffic on its way to its date with the media and various V.I.P.s at the post office.
“I’m a great car enthusiast,” said the film’s director, Jonathan Taylor, who said that made his decision to tackle the project “an easy choice,” despite the logistical hurdles of filming in New York. “The challenge was to shoot the car and make it look beautiful, without anybody seeing it,” he said. This involved the film crew making certain that all three Sport models used for the shoot remained carefully covered between takes, to prevent images of the S.U.V. from being leaked online.
“You tread a fine line between showing off the car’s capabilities, and not scratching it — keeping it in one piece,” said Ian McLaughlin, the film’s stunt coordinator. “In our industry, in stunts, we have to do things repeatedly and safely.” In this case, he said, the added challenge was simply keeping the S.U.V. a secret.
The Range Rover Sport, which goes on sale later this year with a starting price of $63,495, has undergone an extensive mechanical transformation even while the overall exterior design remains faithful to the brand. A slightly lower ride height, larger alloy wheels and modest tweaks to the front and rear fascias are the main visual cues separating the Sport from other Range Rovers. And like the standard Range Rover it is based upon – and which was significantly redesigned for the 2013 model year – a new aluminum unibody structure helped the Sport to shed hundreds of pounds.
According to Land Rover, the 2014 Range Rover Sport weighs about 800 pounds less than its predecessor. While a 510-horsepower supercharged V-8 engine is still offered, the new Sport also offers a 340-horsepower supercharged V-6. All-wheel drive and an 8-speed automatic transmission are standard with either engine.
“It’s a revolution, in my opinion,” Gerry McGovern, design director for Land Rover and Range Rover, said before the big reveal. In the past, he said, the brand’s vehicles “looked the way they did because of what they did.” With Land Rovers and Range Rovers intended for a life of serious off-roading, or at least built with that capability in mind, the previous level of design was merely incidental, he said, “the icing on the cake.” He said the brand’s move into smaller and less expensive vehicles, with the sleek Evoque compact S.U.V. introduced two years ago, was a “game changer” for the company.
“This architecture has been designed specifically to optimize” the Sport, Mr. McGovern said. A longer wheelbase and larger rear doors create a roomier cabin. “In the bigger Range Rover, you sit on the seats — it’s like a throne,” he said. But in the Sport, “you sit lower; it’s like a cocoon.”
A smaller steering wheel and taller center console are part of the cabin’s transformation from regular Range Rover to the Sport variant. Such is the case, too, with the truck’s switches or, in this case, the lack of them. To give the cabin a feel that’s less cluttered and more premium level, the 2014 Sport has about half as many buttons and switches as the model being replaced.
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