This is the £240,000 Range Rover SV Coupe

Land Rover’s most ambitious project yet pushes into the luxury stratosphere by overdosing on everything that’s made Britain’s 4x4 icon great: power, capability, craftsmanship and luxury all hit new heights in this ultimate expression of Range Rover-ness. 

The two-door body is largely unique to this model, but you won’t be confusing it for anything else. From its familiar proportions to its floating roof, it looks every inch a Range Rover, although one suitably aggrandised by new grille and bumper for even more commanding presence than normal.

With the exception of just two panels, the aluminium body and glass roof is all different from that of the four-door Range Rover. The carryover parts are the bonnet and the lower half of the tailgate. The top half of the tailgate is set at a faster angle, which is the one visual justification for what Land Rover design chief Gerry McGovern calls the car’s “dramatic two-door silhouette”. And while it’s still boxier than a traditional coupe, it does look good, helped along by a body lowered by 8mm and, a Range Rover first, giant 23-inch forged alloy wheels.

The two doors are substantially wider than the front doors of the regular Range Rover. With the B-pillars pushed rearwards there should be enough space to ease into the four-seat-only cabin. Helping entry and exit are self-closing doors with frameless glass. 

Claims to fame? The SV Coupe is the fastest full-size Range Rover ever. Under the bonnet is the familiar supercharged 5.0-litre V8 in 557bhp form, just 10bhp short of the unit in the SVR Range Rover Sport which remains the brand’s performance champion. SV Coupe performance is quoted as 165mph with 0-62mph in 5.3 seconds. 

It’s the first two-door Range Rover since the MkI two-door. It was in this form that the 4x4 was launched in 1970, finally giving way in 1981 to the four-door body which buyers had been clamouring for for years. It will be among the most exclusive special-edition Range Rovers ever: maximum production will be 999, each hand-assembled at the SVO Technical Centre in Warwickshire. 

It should strike a new balance between dynamic handling and off-road ability for the full-size Range Rover. The firm says it has a more driver-focused edge than the standard offering but loses none of its all-terrain or towing abilities.

Another claim to fame is that interior: what Land Rover calls duo-tone colourways, as in the back seats are different colours from the front seats. There are four contrasting themes to choose from – or you can be conventional and have all your seats the same colour. New wood veneers – the newest fuses walnut and sycamore – and a plethora of chrome, satin, knurled and mesh finishes are said to create the luxury ambience of a superyacht. The leather is semi-aniline and new paint options include a liquid-metal finish, Liquesence, for the first time.

There can however be no getting away from the SV Coupe’s claim to fame as the most expensive Range Rover ever. In reality, owners have been spending more even than a quarter of a million on their Range Rovers for decades, but never before have they made the cheque out to Land Rover.

It still has to be said that £240,000 (plus options of course) is a lot: three times the price of the least expensive Range Rover and £100k more than the list prices of V8 Bentley Bentayga or Lamborghini Urus.

Still, if you’ve got it – like the Range Rover has, for the past 48 years – you might as well flaunt it.