Land Rover Scraps Plans for 518-HP Discovery SVX

When Land Rover first announced the Discovery SVX back in 2017, we couldn’t help but get excited. It featured JLR’s 5.0-liter supercharged V-8 tuned to make 518 hp and 461 lb-ft of torque, but it also had a lifted suspension, all-terrain tires, skid plates, and a roof-mounted light bar. This hardcore off-road Discovery with more than 500 hp was going to be awesome. With a big emphasis on the “was.”

Sadly, as AutoCar first reported, the Discovery SVX is dead. The SVX name will reportedly be used on future models, just not the Discovery. So if you’re interested in high-powered British off-roaders, that should at least be some sort of consolation.

When asked for a comment, a Land Rover spokesperson said, “Land Rover has taken the decision not to introduce a V8 powertrain to the Discovery product family. This means that the Discovery SVX Concept revealed in 2017 will not be going into production. However, we are investigating opportunities to bring Land Rover vehicles with enhanced all-terrain capability to market in [the] future.”

Interestingly, they also said that customers were told last year. So the fact that this news didn’t come out until February is a bit odd. It also means that the Discovery SVX’s cancellation probably wasn’t the direct result of the recently announced losses that led to Jaguar Land Rover cutting 4,500 jobs. Still, financial troubles certainly don’t help the case for limited-production runs of 500-hp off-roaders.

Source: AutoCar

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