On Friday, Bob and I returned to the Land Rover Experience centre at Luton Hoo. This time we got our hands on a Freelander 2 – which we should have driven back in September. This was a brand new one. With just over 100 miles on the clock it hadn’t even been off-road. Until now. 😀 It wasn’t quite the same as my own Freelander 2, this one was an automatic which I think might have helped us a fair bit!
Of course, we’d been here before so we had a fairly good recollection of the technical stuff, however I was amazed to find that “my” car could tackle so much of the extreme stuff. Unlike the old-school Defender, the Freelander has Terrain Response which meant that, despite it not being a pure off-roader like the 110, we could tackle all sorts: firm or muddy surfaces, rocks and boulder fields, steep hills and 40° side slopes – all covered with wet and very slippery Bedfordshire mud.
At one point we had to drive around a curved slope (the best description I can give would be to say it was a bit like a circular berm). We were at a seemingly impossible angle and when I was in the back taking photos and looked out of the side window all I could see was the ground about 2 feet away from me. Very disconcerting!
Of course, the Freelander doesn’t have the ground clearance of most of the Land Rover stable, so negotiating the challenging crossaxle-ing section had to be dealt with in a different way to how we’d done it in the Defender. If we’d driven straight over the obstacle we would have grounded it, suffice to say the Freely took it all in its stride.
Another spectacular obstacle we tackled was a ridiculously steep hill which the instructors called “Pilot View” because as you went up it all you could see was sky, that is until you levelled out on a small plateau on the top.
The next stage was to engage the Hill Descent Control and very slowly inch the Freely forward until it tipped down, then hold it on the brakes. The hardest part was having the conviction to trust the HDC to do its stuff and quickly take your feet off both pedals! The Freely simply descended the hill at a nice safe speed, levelling out at the bottom with a bit of a rush! We had several goes at this, it was so awesome.
It seemed all too soon when we had to call it a day. The light was beginning to go and we were the last to leave the site.
An amusing footnote: The Estate had been running a shoot earlier in the day and as a result we hadn’t seen a single bird all afternoon. With the guns long gone the fields were full of pheasants and the tracks had their full compliment of suicidal partridges running in front of us as we drove back.
So, finally, back to the LRE base for tea and medals.
I could get used to this.
Wizzard Prang 