Land Rover Experience

On December 10th, 2006, I had the opportunity to go to the Land Rover Experience day in Doornik. It was a great day full of fun, and I learned many tips and tricks for driving a Land Rover offroad. I drove a Discovery 3 with a manual gearbox, and I must say I’m very glad I own an automatic as it drives much more relaxed and I found it equally capable offroad.

I also drove a Freelander, and I liked the car, especially because it has not much ground clearance (it has 186mm ground clearance, versus the 240mm of the Discovery 3), which means you need to drive it totally different for another Land Rover.

I finished the day in a Range Rover Sport. That car is for 95% the same as the Discovery 3 (same technolgy, same platform, same engine, …), only the model is different. In my opinion, it was very small on the inside, compared to what I’m used to in my Discovery 3. Of course, it looks more sexy that a Disco 3, but I prefer the Disco 3 because its so practical.

I created a short movie about that day (and I just loaded these videos to my computer today, hence the delay of this post).

First, it shows the Freelander driving on a slope. The Freelander has a very low center of mass, which makes it ideal for driving sidewas on a slope without tipping over. Then the movie show the same maneuver with the Discovery 3 (first from the outside, then from the inside). When you’re sitting in the car while driving such a slope, make sure you wear a diaper… very scary! The movie ends with the Defender driving down a hill (in first gear low). Pay attention to the distance the wheels move up and down (this is called the amount of wheel travel) while the bumps are driven (the vehicle is what is called cross-axled, because the axles are pushed in opposite direction): the Defender is the Land Rover with the best wheel-travel, also because it has solid axle suspension.