PRETORIA – The world's most powerful Range Rover yet, the new Range Rover Sport SVR, will take on a race horse at the 2015 Land Rover Africa Cup.
One of Inanda’s thoroughbred polo ponies will race against a 5.0-litre V8 SVR capable of 405kW/680Nm.
In what the automaker calls an "honourable contest", the horse, capable of immediate acceleration and high-speed over a short distance, is pitted against the monster machine, capable of reaching 100km/h in 4.7 seconds.
405KW VS FOUR LEGS
How does the Range Rover Sport SVR’s 405kW stack up against its "one horsepower" four-legged competitor?
• The Range Rover Sport SVR 0-100km/h in just 4.7 seconds. Conversely, the world’s fastest horses can accelerate to 68km/h in as little as 2.5 seconds.
• Top speed? The fastest horse on record reached a whopping 88km/h – impressive, given its modest power output. And from the back of a polo pony a rider will swing their mallet to hit the ball, which will reach speeds of up to 160km/h.
• Similarly, high speeds are the name of the game for the SVR. It is the fastest Range Rover yet and has an electronically limited top speed of 260km/h.
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• The horse might seem outclassed by the SVR, but it does have a weight advantage. Tipping the scales at just 500kg, a polo pony offers both explosive acceleration and excellent agility.
The SVR counters with a lightweight aluminium construction in combination with a supercharged V8. Uprated springs, brakes, and a chassis tuned by Jaguar Land Rover’s Special Vehicle Operation, should make the race very interesting.
• The aluminium-intensive SVR weighs less than five polo ponies. However, if you spanned together 550 draft horses – the type of horse on which the horsepower standard is based – they could pull the weight of roughly three, fully-loaded Boeing 747s.
They’re worlds apart. But for just a few moments, at the Land Rover Africa Cup, one horse will meet its match in the Range Rover Sport SVR in a riveting display of muscle against metal.
WHO WILL WIN?
You can find out on the on the weekend of 14 – 17 August 2015 at the the Land Rover Africa Cup. Tickets are available online through Computicket.
HOW THEY STACK UP?