2016 Land Rover Range Rover Sport vs. Its Competition

Martin Padgett Editorial Director

While sporty SUV seems like an oxymoron, the category has some real players.

The Range Rover Sport might balance on-road grace and off-road mastery best, but it has some brutally powerful competition.

The Porsche Cayenne fields spectacular street performance with enough ruggedizing to enable some trailblazing, but it's a Porsche, first and foremost, which means tarmac-based grip and acceleration come first.

The Jeep Grand Cherokee SRT elbows into this haute crowd with a HEMI roar, if not quite the brand reputation of a Land Rover.

The BMW X6, which was redesigned for 2015, offers a coupe-like profile and even more impressive on-road performance in X6 M form, but lacks the true off-road capability promised by the Range Rover Sport—to some people, that's preferable.

Mercedes-Benz's newly renamed GLE-Class also offers extreme performance with its AMG version, but takes both styling and luxury in a different direction from the toned-down Range Rover.

And finally, Land Rover's own Range Rover offers a more regal alternative to the Sport, though it's aimed primarily at luxuriant driving and incredible off-roading, a little less on hard-charging cornering, and it's not available with the SVR's crazy drivetrain setup.