Land Rover Range Rover Sport HST 2019 first drive

The new Range Rover Sport HST: a special new trim level for Land Rover’s ever-popular Porsche Cayenne rival which gives us our first taste of a key component of the company’s developing engine portfolio – the first six-cylinder motor of the ‘Ingenium’ engine family.

JLR is moving away from V6 engines and towards straight sixes for a few reasons: because it can develop the latter using modular block architecture related to that of its four-pots, but also because straight sixes are more easily packaged with the ever more complicated induction and exhaust systems that modern engines use, and they also deliver well-known relative advantages in mechanical refinement.

The Range Sport’s new ‘P400’ unit is just under 3.0 litres by volume, and it uses twin-scroll turbocharging, electric supercharging and mild hybrid electric motor assistance to make 396bhp and 406lb ft of torque. It effectively replaces the car’s old 3.0-litre V6 supercharged option, slotting into the lineup just below the P400e plug-in hybrid on price, but slightly above it on acceleration and top speed. And, while you can have it in a more ordinary trim level, Land Rover is marking the engine’s introduction with a special trim derivative called HST.

Your first impression of the new motor is one of refinement. Gaydon has gone to considerable lengths to make the P400 the smoothest and most discreet engine available in the car at any price – by fitting near-silent timing chains and the like – and the effort’s paid off pretty clearly.

The HST starts and runs very quietly indeed around town, and shifts gear almost imperceptibly on a steady throttle. There’s a slightly slurred shift quality about the way it swaps cogs at times, and also an occasional gentle surge of torque on upshifts that comes unannounced – but almost nothing else to mark each gear as it engages.

Extend the engine’s revs in manual mode and, even in a 2.2-tonne car, the straight six is responsive, flexible and potent; in something half-a-tonne lighter, it’d be ready for a sporting application already – assuming a more positive and consistent shift quality could be tuned in. Power delivery is very linear; the engine pulls beyond 6000rpm notably more freely than JLR's four-pot Ingenium turbos. Audible character, meanwhile, is great: smooth and reserved at low speed, yet quite tuneful through the higher reaches.

Our short test drive didn’t grant a chance to get a really accurate impression of what the HST’s everyday fuel economy might be, but did suggest that 25mpg is achievable on a mix of urban and country roads. Explore the engine’s full range of performance and you’ll see fuel economy drop quickly into the high teens. Anyone expecting economy on a level with that of a SDV6, then, might therefore be in for a slight disappointment – although, if you drive moderately, it certainly seems possible to get a respectable return.