There's not much to compare between the two spec-wise; the RR Sport trumps the GTS

Call me odd, but if you want to know what the new Range Rover Sport Supercharged and Cayenne GTS represent, what goals each tries to achieve and where their raisons d’etre lie, you don’t even need to go as far as unlocking each car – you simply have to take a good look at each car’s tyres.

Those ring-shaped pieces of rubber with steel bead wires in them tell you a fair bit. The Cayenne wears Yokohama Advan Sport 295/35R21s, where the Rangey has a set of Michelin 4x4 Diamaris 275/40R20s. If that amalgamation of words and numbers was to tell you one thing, it’s that the Porsche is firmly focused on on-road performance. Not only are its tyres bigger, wider and have a shorter profile, one look at the description for the Yokohamas and you notice words like: ‘high-speed’, ‘grip’, ‘control’, ‘traction’, ‘handling’, ‘increased contact area’. With the Rangey’s Michelins, it’s ‘quiet ride’ and ‘comfort’. Even just by looking at the surface of each one you can hazzard a guess that the rougher, deeper-grooved, knobbly Michelins are more suited to off-road work and therefore the Rangey won’t be quite as fast around the bendy bits as the Porsche. Game over before it’s even began? Let’s give the new Supercharged RR Sport a chance.

I’ll come back to the tyres later. Tyres only truly matter when it comes to the finely-cut slicks on an Ariel Atom, but in a 2.5ton-plus SUV, there are other important factors to think about.

Like exactly what kind of SUV you want. The boundaries between the Sport bit and the Utility bit have been somewhat blurred recently. In the Land Rover lineup, the big Range Rover is definitely about utility, and the Sport is for those who want to pretend they’re sporty (in truth, the Sport is never fully comfortable being hussled). Now, with the addition of a supercharger, the Sport packs the XFR’s 503bhp V8 and a new dynamic mode for the suspension. The accent is now firmly on the S part of the SUV spectrum. We approve. That’s why we’re giving it a good ’ol workout by pitting it against the Middle East’s current favourite performance SUV, the Cayenne GTS. 

Visually, it’s the Porsche that makes the biggest impact thanks to its racecar-like addenda (and despite its Macadamia brown paintjob). The large front air intakes, the flared wheelarches, the front and rear aprons – the GTS is positively taut. As ugly as it’s ever been, yes, but still no-nonsense. Still very racey when compared to the elegant blue ingot that is the RRS.

'The Sport even boasts a time of 8m49sec around The Ring...'    

With a redesigned, cleaner front end that includes narrower headlamps and new light clusters, the Sport has been freshened up. Along with the interior, it’s a beautifully uncluttered, luxurious, tactile and well-glued together affair. The cockpit-like feeling from the high centre console and nearby gearlever make it an absolute joy to spend time in.

Step out of the RRS and into the GTS and the first thing that strikes you is how big a move you’ve just made from opulence to functionality. You now sit closer to earth and also lower in the cabin with those 911-like bulges at the two front corners visible just ahead and below your eyeline. Alcantara lining throughout gives it a semi-GT3 ambience. It feels smaller(ish), snugger and the seats offer more support. That’s more like it. At the same time though, it’s a busy, overly complex interior with far too many buttons, and it’s not helped by the sand beige colour scheme of this test car’s interior.

The GTS’s perceived vigour bears true from the moment you start it, releasing a hard, deep-chested, angry growl from its quad chrome exhausts. If you have the Sport button switched on, the acousitcs are even more pronounced. The Rangey sings a similar, fiery tune. Just as purposeful, only more muted. Both rumbles raise a smile, though.

Sitting outside evo-me HQ with Editor Bassam and contributor (and Porsche instructor) Luca Cima, we wait for snapper Khaled to arrive. After picking up the Cayenne the day before, Bassam isn’t a fan. Luca, who’s driven it several times, waxes lyrical on the Porsche. He takes a passing interest in the RRS. A mixed response then.

At first glance, it seems there’s not much to compare between the two cars spec-wise: the RRS trumps the GTS by 98bhp and 92lb ft of torque. But life isn’t so simple for the Rangey. Because of its extra 365kg bulk, it hits the ton just 0.3sec ahead of the GTS, and doesn’t brush off the Porsche beyond that. The GTS’s V8 though, feels like it’s working much harder than the supercharged JLR unit. Below 4000rpm the car feels lethargic and you have to work it to make it really deliver. The powerhouse of the Rangey is undoubtedly the more satisfying. You can be mozying along and suddenly decide you want to open the taps, and that thumping V8 happily responds, launching you forwards. It’s the kind of engine where it seems not very much is happening, the revs building slowly, the engine seemingly keeping plenty in reserve, but the speed builds at an alarming rate. If you want to feel more involved you can fiddle with the new ‘Command Shift’ paddles that sit neatly at your fingertips behind the quarter-to-three positions of the wheel, but in truth, the ZF ’box does a fine job left to its own devices. Select any gear and back off the power and it even burbles and pops on the overrun, the vibrations reverberrating forwards until they go through your bottom. Very amusing.

It’s at this point that my theory on tyres comes in, for while the RRS’s suspension bushings have been stiffened to increase steering response, there’s more vagueness to the Rangey’s chunky helm; it’s less weighty and less direct than the GTS, too. It’s by no means dull, but you bond with the Porsche’s steering the moment you take your first bend. It’s so positive and consistent in its feel that it infuses confidence in you. You can just tell the same engineers who fettled the 911 have worked on the GTS.

It takes a bit of time and a few bites at the wheel mid-corner to get used to the Rangey’s variable-ratio system and feel for where the grip is. Initial turn-in response is sharp, though when you get to a steady state bend, the impression the front gives is that there’s more grip to come, whereas in truth, if you apply a touch more lock, a sudden bout of understeer kicks in. It makes you think twice when throwing it into a corner.

That’s not to say the Rangey isn’t able to deal with the twisty stuff. Select the new Dynamic Response setting on the Terrain Response, show it a sequence of corners and it deals with them admirably, firming up the air suspension, adjusting the adaptive dampers and changing the active anti-roll bars to suit. The body is composed and roll is minimal. To prove a point, Land Rover even boasts a time of 8m49sec around the old ‘Ring for the new Sport. Point taken, but life behind the wheel is about more than just outright pace, and the new RRS’s steering still isn’t the last word in communication.

Tick the Porsche Dynamic Chassis Control (PDCC) and Porsche Active Suspension Management (PASM) options on a GTS – and you must because you’ve just bought a GTS and not the milder S – and the result is an SUV that belies its size, one that takes the RRS’s talents and multiplies them. Using the active anti-roll bars and the Sport setting of PASM, the dampers are constantly stiff (whereas in the Rangey they constantly vary) and the GTS remains flat and surefooted through any arc. It’s more exploitable, more poised than you’d first imagine such a bulbous thing can be. When you drive the RRS hard, it manages to lose about 500 kilos just from the way it feels. When you drive the Cayenne GTS hard, you’re convinced it weights at least a ton less than it’s actual mass. That is what sets these two apart.

Between moving cars around for Khaled’s lens at one of Dubai Creek’s old ship-building sites, Luca tells me of one particular customer experience day at the Dubai Autodrome, when the Porsche technicians electronically disconnected the front driveshaft of a GTS. It was, says Luca, ‘an amazing drift machine’ and allowed him to frolic in it all day long. Given its balanced chassis and 38:62 f/r power split, I can say I firmly believe him.

'The Cayenne GTS feels happy to charge around at full-bore all day'

As for those differing tyre designs, the pre-drive assumptions turned out to be true. Much of those rubber descriptions reflect the car the tyres are fitted to.

As an everyday proposition, the Rangey is the obvious choice. It’s appeal lies in its breadth of abilities. You can have your right elbow perched on the arm rest and two left fingers holding the wheel as you revel in the torque and punch of the engine. Or you can change cogs manually and summon its chassis trickery to build pace. The build up in velocity is also kept in check by the uprated Brembos. Off road? Well it can do that too.

Trouble is we’re not much concerned with off-road capabilities (I’d be surprised if any GTS or RRS owner ventured off the black stuff). Neither does comfort come into this particular equation. Or storage space, or perceived class, or refinement – all points that the Range Rover wins hands down on.

What we’re more concerned with is fighting and then disguising physics, while maintaining an unashamedly extensive road presence. In that respect, as hugely desirable, capable and powerful as the RRS Supercharged is, it has some way to go to match the Porsche’s out-and-out dynamism and aggression. The new Sport feels most at home being driven at seven tenths, whereas the GTS is happy to charge around at full-bore all day. A stiffer suspension setting and more performance-oriented on-road set of tyres might help the Rangey, but right now the status quo remains. The Cayenne GTS is still the benchmark in the performance SUV market.