Shed Of The Week: Land Rover Freelander

Shed's found himself an all-terrain landaulet. Or an old Freelander three-door, if you must

Say what you like about Rover - and over the years, many have - but some of the stuff they came out with wasn't half bad. Conceptually speaking, anyway. Often as not, the only tiny thing that let the company down was its inability to turn a good concept into an equally pleasing reality. Admittedly, that's a fairly fundamental flaw for any manufacturer hoping to sell more than one lot of cars into a marketplace offering plenty of other choices, but the fact remains that they did come out with some decent ideas.

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Take this Freelander. Industry gossip (alright, Wikipedia) suggests that Rover had been considering an entry into the small SUV segment as long ago as the 1980s. If that's true then they were well ahead of that particular curve. By the time the Freelander was launched in 1997, they'd had plenty of time to think about it.

It was time well spent by the looks of it, because the Freelander was seen as quite the thing by the average upwardly-mobile thrustmeister or yummy mummy. Rover had asked Honda to join in the venture, but they declined the invite, a critical underestimation of the power of the Land Rover brand even then. Instead, Honda produced its own soft-roader, the ostensibly quirky but actually remarkably characterless CR-V. It never went wrong and sold in small numbers, unlike the Freelander, which was subject to a thousand recalls and dominated the class for five years after launch. Which all goes to show that there's nowt so queer as folk.

This telly advert was probably one of the first Landie ads exhorting owners to 'go beyond'. Shed thinks the statute of limitations will have run out on the fact that an idea he had for a Freelander advertorial (based on 'going beyond' the start of the River Nile) was vetoed by LR when the possibility of driving over the odd patch of sand was mentioned. It was thought that any surface medium more granular and unstable than a Black Country B-road or lightly dampened farm track might play havoc with the not-that-brilliantly protected works of the wee beastie, and strand it embarrassingly.

Remember how clever Hill Descent Control was?

Yes, the Freelander was more of a soft-roader than a strongman dirt-digger, a forbifor in name and style rather than extreme ability. But, although it didn't have the low-range trans, locking diffs or separate chassis of its big brothers, the Freelander did have a decent package of attributes including four-wheel drive and the first iteration of LR's clever Hill Descent Control system. Of course, it also had the notorious K-series 1.8 engine, friend of top-end rebuild specialists everywhere.

Our Shed is in the three-door bodystyle that has somehow retrospectively acquired the title of Hardback. For them as don't know, the back section above that 45-degree buttress comes off, leaving your rear seat passengers with their conks partially out in the breeze. Once upon a time, limousines both horse-drawn and mechanical offered this chopped-off look. These so-called landaulets allowed toff owners to benefit from the health-giving rays of King Sol while the pasty-faced chauffeur sweated it out in the enclosed cabin up front. Shed has never been entirely sure who the beneficiaries of this Freelander 'Hardback' configuration are, as the aforementioned buttress does restrict the back seat passengers' view somewhat. It looks funny, too, a bit like a supersized Suzuki X90. Choosing the three-door should at least get you around the mysterious 'exploding rear screen' problem that afflicted the five-door hatch, but not the sagging hinges problem caused by the not-so-bright placement of the spare wheel.

Who wouldn't want a topless 4x4?

What else can go wrong? How long have you got? Actually, most of the potential faults only apply to early models, so we should be able to discount the fractured rear hub assembly suspension problem that made it hard to hold the car in a straight line, the unlatched front seats that would tip forward under heavy braking, and the chafing wiring harness that would knock out fans, fuel pumps, lights, air-con, ignition, engine management, ABS, HDC, and SRS. We can also forget about the dodgy child locks on cars built between July and September 2002.

The good thing is that most difficulties (like the diagnostic connector issue on 2000-2002 1.8 petrols) should already have been resolved through that blizzard of recalls. What about the blowing head gasket that blighted all 1.8 petrols (like this one)? Well, that's where the 'some service history' referred to in the ad becomes important.

History gaps notwithstanding, good Freelander 1s remain well sought after, and the specimen we have here does look to have been well pampered by its previous owners. The turquoise carpet is nicely redolent of the interior design schtick LR was getting into at the time. It's less than practical, but the compensation is a well thought-out cabin with lots of storage cubbies. The extensive use of damage-resistant plastic body panels helps too. Also, here you've got a tow bar, always a nice protective addition to any car even if you never tow anything.

You could argue that if any Freelander 1 has got to this point in what looks to be still-decent condition, maybe it would be a kindness not to subject it to the dirty rigours of the council tip. Sorry, recycling centre. That's the new posh name, don't ye know.

Here's the ad.

MOT February 2015. Road Tax August 2014. Drives Very Well. Some Service History. Very Good Condition For Its Year. Ready to Drive Away.

Spec Features - Driver's seat with lumbar adjustment, Electronic traction control, Electric heated + adjustable door mirrors, Electric front windows, Height adjustable steering column, Perimetric and volumetric anti theft alarm, RDS radio/cassette, Radio frequency remote control central locking, Robust passive engine immobilisation. 4 seats.

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ManicMunky

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