Blaze’s own Stig look-alike, Andrew Koch has been out and about in the latest Range Rover Sport – a premium SUV blending off road ability with luxury.

While traditional Land Rover models have combined unbeatable off-road performance with the amenities of a luxury sedan, the Range Rover Sport represents Land Rover’s first entry into the burgeoning high-performance Sports Utility Vehicle (SUV) arena. It is designed to offer sporty road manners and traditional Land Rover luxury without sacrificing the go-anywhere abilities of other Land Rovers, all of which it does admirably.

As MT editor-in-chief Angus MacKenzie once said in regard to the 2005 Land Rover LR3 (our 2005 Sport/Utility of the Year award winner), “Whether it’s Rodeo Drive or the Rubicon Trail, there isn’t a sport/utility in the world that will cover the terrain as quietly, confidently, or comfortably.” While we didn’t get the chance to tackle the Rubicon during our recent drive of the 2009 Land Rover LR3 HSE LUX, we can attest that the latest edition of Land Rover’s midrange premium off-roader still lives up to all the hype when cruising Rodeo.

The Old Sodbury’s Land Rover Sortout will be exhibiting, for the second year, on 17 and 18th May.

This year Brookwells will be exhibiting on 17th May.

There will be hundreds of stands of Land Rover and 4×4 parts and accessories. Visitors will have a possibility of buying used, take offs, obsolete stock, body parts, engines, gearboxes, axles, bulkheads, clutches, accessories, improvements, conversions, even complete projects.

Apart from buying Land Rover parts and accessories, there will be also a possibility of meeting the specialists who can be a source of information.

Buyers will have a chance of buying non commonly seen Land Rovers parts and accessories from Overseas sellers.

Lucky for us, Land Rover doesn’t change much this year on the swanky and affordable LR2 model.

This year’s LR2 loses a trim level, the base SE level, leaving the HSE as the only version.

The sole powertrain teams a 230-horsepower, 3.2-liter V6 engine with a six-speed automatic transmission.

In my week behind the wheel in this luxurious SUV, I got about 22 mpg, which is pretty average for the weight and engine in this model.

The orginal Freelander was very much Land Rover’s poor relation. This one could be the value buy of the breed.

It’s closer in size to the last generation Discovery, and it now also features the terrain response system, with its handy dial that sets the centre coupling for the four-wheel-drive, the stability control, engine management and transmission according to the ground you’re traversing.

On slippery surfaces it’ll deliver torque gradually, with early upshifts and high sensitivity for the stability control. Sand? The gearing’s more aggressive, the Haldex coupling redistributing torque to suit. Useful, but that’s not what underlined this car’s talents.

Though revised-for-2010 Range Rover, Range Rover Sport and Discovery 4 models (all to be revealed next week at the New York Auto Show) are all to get an updated version of the current ZF six-speed automatic gearbox, an all-new eight-speed transmission is under development.

A Land Rover engineer told 4Car that this gearbox should deliver fuel economy improvements of over 10%, due to the wider choice of gear ratios, with particular benefits in urban driving.

This will go some way to compensate for the fact that a stop-start system is now unlikely in these models for some time. Such a set-up, as in the Freelander TD4e, is difficult to engineer to work with automatic transmission, especially when smoothness and refinement are priorities.