New Range Rover Sport races a Spitfire on the Goodwood Airfield (video)

The new Range Rover Sport takes on the iconic Spitfire (pictured) in a race at Goodwood

They may have stolen the idea from Top Gear, but Land Rover has taken up a challenge from FortyOneSix.com to turn up at the Goodwood Airfield with a new Range Rover Sport and take on a WWII Spitfire on the Goodwood Airfield. As the Goodwood Airfield is a grass strip, it’s a proper test of the new Range Rover Sport’s ability to get away on slippery surfaces and the Spitfire provides a worthy challenger with its 1750bhp V12 Merlin engine offering a 400mph performance in the air and over 80mph at take-off.

The Vickers Submarine Spitfire was piloted by Matt Jones from the Boultbee Flight Academy and the RRS by Mike Cross, so there was no doubting the abilities of both to get the best out of their charges.

The race brief was to set off from a standing start at one end of the grass airstrip, get to the other end as quickly as possible, turn round (by which time the Spitfire is in the air) and go hell for leather back to the start.

Land Rover, unsurprisingly, choose the V8 Supercharged Range Rover Sport for the challenge and it managed to get off the line remarkably well, especially considering how little grip their is on grass, and got up to 130mph before the turn.

In the best tradition of races like this the win went down to the line – and you’ll have to watch the video (below) to discover the result.

The new Range Rover Sport gets its dynamic debut this weekend at the Goodwood Festival of Speed.

By Cars UK