For the past half century Land Rover has been honing its products across the 5,200 acres that make up the Eastnor Castle estate, set deep in the Herefordshire countryside on the English-Welsh boarder land.
To celebrate, Land Rover gathered an eclectic bunch of vehicles that all owe there existence to engineering development work carried out on the rugged and demanding tracks that make up the estate. So tough is the terrain that it’s rumored the Special Air Services, better known as the SAS and similar to the US Seals, do some of their survival training there.
Some of the vehicles made it to production, others didn’t, whilst there were a few development mules under disguises so their running gear could be developed and tested.
One such vehicle is the black van parked next to the original Freelander. Dating back to the mid 90’s the Maestro van hides the Freelander’s running gear; when driven it felt remarkably light and quite sprightly despite its years. And that’s not any old field it’s parked in either; although difficult to see in the pictures those are relatively steep, grassy slopes where the world’s first automatic, electronic Hill Descent Control was developed by Land Rover’s engineering team under the watchful eye of chassis guru, Mike Gallery. He has transferred to an equally challenging project with Jaguar – developing the chassis for its CX-75 supercar.
One that didn’t see production was the gargantuan 129-inch wheelbase sandy colored truck developed to take on the Dodge Power wagon in the Middle Eastern oil fields. Only six prototypes were built of which two are left, the one I drove had lain unused for 18 years before its refurbishment. Even so, that wasn’t completed and as the clutch hydraulics had packed up it meant I had to pump the clutch pedal furiously before changing gear. Combine that with the turning circle of a small oil tanker, block tread tires that felt as if they had as much grip as a bar of soap and it was quite a challenge to drive. It was powered by a puny Weslake developed 2.5-liter six-cylinder producing 85 bhp.
Events like this always bring home just how rapid vehicle development has been in the past four or so decades. That bare rolling chassis I am sitting in is an original Range Rover, its 3.5-liter Buick-based engine from 1970 producing all of 130 bhp, a figure that’s easily surpassed today by family hatchbacks.
Driving the Camel Trophy Land Rover 110 with the Ives brothers, who won the event in 1989, brought memories flooding back as it was to the same specification as the one I had used the previous year when helping to run the Sulawesi, Indonesia, Trophy.
While the dark green 30th anniversary Range Rover was a defining model engineered when the marque was under BMW ownership, “They just didn’t understand why we demanded such tough off-roading criteria,” its custodian, ‘Pip’ Archer told me as we trundled round the stately homes’ grounds, “That is until we tested their SUV here against ours.” It’s not difficult to imagine which one was left stranded, buckled and broken on Eastnor’s punishing tracks.
This wasn’t just a sepia-toned trip down memory lane; on hand was the complete suite of Land Rover’s current model range from Range Rover Evoque to Land Rover 110, with no track, hill climb/descent or wading trough off limits. Where the work horse 110 went, although it now boasts air-con for heaven’s sake, so too, did the uber cool Victoria Beckham wagon Evoque.
And that’s where Land Rover differs from other SUV manufacturers. I have yet to go on a, for instance, Porsche Cayenne launch where I have been offered the chance to seriously test it’s off road credentials. This is despite the fact that at its debut back in 2002 the technical presentation assured the gathered press that, having assessed all rivals, Porsche had engineered the world’s best 4×4.
Contrast that to the recent Evoque launch which involved cross-country north Wales and a subterranean tunnel in Liverpool dating back to the Victorian era.
Over the years I have spent a many enjoyable, challenging day and, occasional, sub-zero temperature night under canvas at Eastnor. Off-road driving offers a different but, equally difficult, set of skills to driving a high-powered V-8 at Silverstone race track which is what I did the following day. But for that, if you have been reading, you will have to wait until January.
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