Kingsley's secret service

If it wasn’t for the raucous V8 rumbling down to tickover before clicking off, you could almost hear the necks crane and the windows crack open in unison.

Eventually, source narrowed in on, the sight of the latest Kingsley handiwork commanding the Orchard Car Park is met with: “Well it doesn’t sound like a Range Rover…”

That, of course, is the point. In many ways Kingsley does to Range Rovers what Bicester Heritage resident Singer does to air-cooled Porsches. This latest creation has been carried out rather more quietly, like many of its projects and unlike some of its others, but it’s no less spectacular.

Before Kingsley had its hands on the car it was an already pretty well sorted Suffix A (a very early three-door, in other words), but the owner wanted a bit more punch. And boy did they get it. The Rover V8 has been wound up to produce 320bhp, just shy of what TVR settled with in the Griff and Chimaera when it too made use of the old Buick block. More pertinently, that’s more than double what powered this Rangie out of Solihull around 50 years ago.

Officially, it will hit 60mph from a standing start in a mere 8.1 seconds. Unofficially, and anecdotally on the evidence on the straights beside Hangar 113, that is conservative. The Test Track doesn’t quite have a long enough stretch of Tarmac to put a definitive number on the 125mph+ top speed, either. It lays that power down via a limited-slip diff rear, but still the wheels spin at will.

So, it doesn’t sound like a Range Rover, and it doesn’t go like a Range Rover, either.

Inside, the owner’s car is largely as they delivered it to the nearby specialist, based in Eynsham, except for the bigger, better and more comfortable seats and the wider transmission tunnel. It's been rewired to accommodate the period-looking DAB Blaupunkt Bremen, which genuinely looks the part, plus a heated windscreen and the new air conditioning.

So, it is still as comfortable as a Range Rover.

More interesting, perhaps, is the magic sprinkled beneath that rust-proofed body. The fully balanced 5-litre is mated to a later gearbox, the R380, and it is far slicker than any Range Rover Classic has any right to be. It almost makes you second guess it, so easy and smooth is the action and the way it engages.

The engine fires when it is ready, taking its time to unleash its fury out to the upgraded stainless exhaust, and it simply pulls and pulls. It stops on a sixpence, to borrow a tired old cliché, courtesy of six-pot front and four-pot rear brakes behind option Land Rover Defender wheels.

So, it certainly doesn’t brake like a Range Rover.

It leans its weight into turns but it does so with purpose and is aggressive with it, rather than lolloping, courtesy of the uprated sports suspension and handling pack. In that you’ll find uprated rollbars and bush sets, plus bespoke dampers and lowered springs.

So, it doesn’t handle like a Range Rover.

You get the gist.

As the trade plates go back on the engine lazily fires up, the final pre-delivery checks done, you also get the whole idea. On the evidence of this visit, it’s clear everyone gets it, too, and it draws people in like a magnet. This is a Range Rover Classic with the good bits retained, most likely improved upon, and the less-good bits completely overhauled.

And, perhaps best of all, it is still very much a Range Rover with its soul in tact.