By Steven Cole Smith

Land Rover sold its premium model, the Range Rover, overseas for 17 years before bringing it to the United States in early 1987. When it arrived, it debuted to a moderately confused audience: Who needs a $36,450 British sport utility vehicle?

Answer: No one, really. But gradually, the Range Rover began winning over the California crowd, and when California says a vehicle is cool, who are we to argue?

There’s an argument to be made that the Range Rover’s quotient of cool peaked with the 1991 Robert Altman film “The Player,” in which Tim Robbins played a chilly film executive who drove a Range Rover with a fax machine in the dashboard.

Following on the success of the Range Rover Sport Supercharged, Land Rover has extended the models product offering by launching a Naturally Aspirated engine variant that comes with a 4.4 litre V8 engine that delivers 300 bhp and accelerates from 0-60 km/h in just 8.2 seconds.

Positioned as a luxury Sports Tourer, the Range Rover Sport model is Land Rovers best-performing and best-handling vehicle ever built. Since its launch just 18 months ago, it has won over 15 International awards and sold 1865 units in the Middle East Region since May 2005.