Recently knocking the spectacular 'Birmingham International Railway Station' off the top slot ("Die retoorn to Naples, pleurse"... I think not), the entirely splendid 'Fun Run' is currently my all time favourite oxymoron. The very idea of running for pleasure rather than the simple expedient of winning a race strikes me as every bit as absurd as making a shoe called a 'trainer' in which nobody ever actually trains.

But in today's exciting, more-bigger-snacks-now society, image is everything.

And merely wearing loud plimsoles in a built up area such as, say, the public bar, seems to be enough to convince every dewy-eyed squeeze within a 15 yard radius that you're just back from high altitude marathon training in Mexico, and fit as a butcher's dog.

Disturbingly, this tenet has become increasingly prevalent in the context of yet other, stop-press oxymoron; the ‘off-roader’. Today, you need not wear a hollowed-out racoon on your head to be Davy Crockett. Just as long as your car's appearance makes it clear to all and sundry that your weekends are spent miles up a mountain modelling wolverine pelt underpants and eating raw logs, then the piano player will cease abruptly when you walk in, you'll gain automatic access to the pub spittoon and your whisky shot will be slid into your callused hand via the full length of the bar.

Trouble is, even that stout-boot-and-thousand-mile-stare image is a trifle robust for the Vodka and Red Bull generation. They simply want '4x4' written on the rump of their cars for the same reason they wear DKNY across their chests, the Nike tick on their trainers, and those odious urban rucksacks with the carrying capacity of a hamster cheek; fashion.

So now, inevitably, it seems that even our cars are being styled with the same shelf life as that of sling-backs in mind. And examples of this worrying trend are now available from an increasing number of manufacturers -a voguish glossary of shiny, hip automotive elements assembled around the coveted ‘command driving position’ that, like your clothes, make you happy because they get you noticed. Until, that is, you wake up in a couple of months time to the sickening realisation that you've just forked out a small fortune for nothing more than an accessory that's gone clean out of fashion in scarcely the time it takes to don a pair of combat pants (another oxymoron) and biff off to the barbers for an all over number 2 complete with Tintin quiff held firm via a vigorously head-butted tub of lard.

Happily, however, there remains one manufacturer staunchly determined to imbue every new model with a consistency of off-road prowess appropriate to its peerless pedigree; Land Rover. And the new Range Rover Sport is no exception.

However, I might as well break the bad news straight away; this isn’t really a true Range Rover. Land Rover’s current flagship was designed and executed under BMW ownership. A remarkable machine boasting quite the best interior design in the business, the Range Rover’s only flaw has been an engine so gutless it couldn’t pull a new age traveller off your sister. Happily, with BMW no longer supplying engines for the very vehicle it developed, this mild oversight has now been rectified and the car is firmly ensconced at the top of my wish-list.

But it remains a one-off, and the new Range Rover Sport reveals itself to be actually little more than a cross-dressing Discovery 3, sharing the same mechanicals and some of the engines, as well as significant chunks of interior design. The car was originally to have been called Range Sport or somesuch, and the strictly honest approach would have been to conjure a third model name which left both Land and Range prefixes well alone; Estate Rover, perhaps. Or Wild Rover. Or the demographically forthright SW1 Rover. Or even, in homage to the anticipated flock of Premiership players beating a path to the showroom door, Blackburn Rover… Truth is, however, that Land Rover spent a fortune developing the huge, heavy, expensive and largely fabulous Discovery, and feels the best chance of recouping the cost is through exploitation of the revered Range Rover badge. Brand devaluation, anyone?

Be that as it may, the new Sport is still a seriously engaging piece of machinery. Range Rover styling hallmarks of clamshell bonnet and floating roof on blacked out pillars remain, though the mesh grilles to front and side vents lack the cold slab class of the original, whilst what looks, at first glance, to be a traditional split tailgate is actually a conventional, one piece, top hinged affair overlaid with a pointless, clumsily detailed opening rear screen. On board, you’ll find a first class driving position hemmed in by high quality, Discovery 3 instrumentation and switchgear, with added swoosh and slivers of timber. Nothing wrong with that, except, for those anticipating a true Range Rover interior, a little nomenclature disingenuousness.

Under the skin, the Sport shares the Discovery’s super stiff ‘Integrated Body-frame’ structure -albeit shortened by 14mm in the wheelbase- and independent, air-sprung, double-wishbone suspension at each corner. It also shares the Land Rover’s weight problem. At around 2.7 tonnes, the Discovery is the heaviest car on the roads today (invariably reminding me of the American gentleman who, arguing with his wife in bed one night, shot her dead a split second before remembering that he was actually too heavy to get up without her help). Some 132kg lighter, the Sport would still have a fairly drastic effect on the flight characteristics of the Nimble balloon. Which is why, if you’re after a model that reflects more than mere lifestyle pretensions in the badging and truly aspires to take the fight to road dynamics obsessed rivals such as the BMW X5 or Porsche Cayenne, you’ll ignore lesser variants boasting both V6 turbodiesel and conventionally aspirated 4.4 litre V8 power, and opt for the £57,495, 4.2 litre supercharged V8 model.

Even thus armed, it would be wrong to suggest the Sport goes like a stabbed rat, being, instead, through the ministrations of a sublime, 6-speed ZF automatic transmission, a master of the silken shove. 0-62mph comes up in 7.2 seconds accompanied by a muted yet rather pleasing soundtrack and, pinning you back in your seat and taking off like a scalded bungalow, the Sport will thump on to a governed 140mph top speed.