Land Rover Freelander 1 Vehicle Production Summary - 1997 to 2006

Land Rover Freelander 1 VIN Information

Land Rover Freelander 1 Introduction

Freelander 1997-2006 ‘Land Rover’s Answer to the Compact SUV’

At least that’s how the motoring press billed it when the Freelander was launched at the Frankfurt Motor Show in 1997. By the mid-1990s, Japanese car manufacturers such as Toyota and Honda had apparently found a new market sector - the compact sports utility vehicle (compact SUV) - and filled it with their own products such as the RAV4 and CR-V.

The truth was, as is often the case with the British motor industry, rather different behind the scenes. Land Rover and its then parent company Rover Group had identified the potential for such a vehicle back in the 1980s; frustratingly it just took nearly ten years to get it to market.

Project Lifestyle...

In the late 1980s, the Land Rover portfolio was about to change from a disparate but very competent two model line-up (utilitarian 90/110 and increasingly luxurious Range Rover) to include a third model, Discovery, that slotted in between the first two and started to bind the Land Rover line up together as a more cohesive range.

Land Rover and Rover were already realising that in fact there was also space in the line up for a fourth model, a mini-Discovery aimed primarily at a younger audience - an audience that, attracted by fun features and styling on the smaller car, would buy into Land Rover ownership and might ultimately trade up to Discovery and Range Rover.

Thus Project Lifestyle was born. More car-sized and car-like than previous Land Rovers, it was initially worked on jointly by Land Rover and Rover development staff, which is why Freelander ended up with some previously un-Land Rover like features, such as dispensing with the traditional ladder frame chassis in favour of a self-supporting (and more refined) monocoque bodyshell.

The entry level customer potential of the compact SUV was also not lost on Honda who, during their collaboration period with Rover Group, saw and appreciated early iterations of Lifestyle and as a result went away to work on their own CR-V. Unrestricted by the budget restraints that during that period shackled Land Rover, Honda got their CR-V to market quickly, beating Land Rover’s Freelander by several years.

... becomes CB40

Under the aforementioned financial restraints (typical of the period when British Aerospace owned Rover Group), Project Lifestyle crept slowly but determinedly onwards. Different project names were assigned as evolution took place: Lifestyle became Pathfinder became Oden, engines, transmissions and wheelbases were established. Presaging a derivative of Freelander 2 introduced some 20 years later, even a two (front) wheel drive version was evaluated.

A ‘What If?’ design presentation to Rover Group management by Rover Special Products seemed to finally give the compact SUV project the impetus it needed. Called Cyclone, it was a jacked up, chopped-about Honda Civic Shuttle, set up to look like a four wheel drive fun car with open back and ‘loud’ bodyside graphics. The potential was obvious to the Rover board and the compact SUV project was given the go-ahead to complete development and ready the car for production. At the same time, the project name was changed once more, to CB40.

The sale of Rover Group from British Aerospace to BMW and the BMW board’s delight when they came across CB40 saw the investment the project had longed for finally roll in from Germany.

The body designs were quickly finalised: a 3 door soft back/hard back and a 5 door station wagon (Land Rover’s traditional terminology for an estate car), both showing strong cues to their Land Rover DNA. The castellated clam shell bonnet from the Range Rover, the station wagon’s raised rear roof line from the Discovery and the round rear lights echoing those on Defender left the observer in no doubt this was a Land Rover. This was further confirmed by the typically Land Rover ‘command’ driving position.

Freelander Launches, at Last

The final line up unveiled to the public at the Frankfurt Motor Show in 1997 included the two body styles with a choice of Rover’s 1.8 litre K Series petrol engine or their 2.0 litre L Series turbo diesel, both mated to the Rover/Peugeot PG1 manual gearbox and a new device for Land Rover called an IRD unit. Made necessary by the transverse engine/gearbox layout, the ‘Intermediate Reduction Drive’ unit apportioned drive as necessary to the front and rear axles but did so without the high and low gear choices of a traditional Land Rover transfer gearbox. Compensating for this on all but the most basic model were anti lock brakes, electronic traction control and an electronic off road control system called Hill Descent Control (HDC), a great innovation which would become a very successful feature of future Land Rovers.

The more car-like nature of Freelander was accentuated by a much more car-like interior, with airbags on offer, comfortable seats and young-at-heart fabric designs or plush leather. MacPherson strut suspension smoothed the ride and - wonder of wonders - a steering rack gave precise road feel in place of the usual slightly vague (but very capable off road) Land Rover steering box.

Sales immediately took off. Clearly, whilst Japanese compact SUVs had beaten it to the marketplace, the Freelander was the one - with the Land Rover pedigree - that everybody had been waiting for. Within 18 months sales were over 60000 per year (and the car hadn’t yet been launched in the lucrative North America), making it easily the best selling compact SUV in the markets in which it was sold and accounting for 40 per cent of Land Rover’s vastly increased production output.

More Versions, More Markets

For the 2001 model year many updates and improvements were introduced. Apart from new badges denoting trim level and engine specification, not many were obvious from the outside. Inside, the trim had been changed in terms of fabrics and the station wagon finally had electric mechanisms for the rear side door windows. However, the biggest changes were under the bonnet. A range-topping 2.5 litre KV6 petrol engine was now offered, mated to a Jatco automatic gearbox (a combination already tried and tested in the Rover 75); this powertrain from the following year onwards would spearhead Freelander’s long awaited march into North America (USA, Canada and Mexico). At last!

Just as influential, though, was the introduction of BMW’s very modern, refined and flexible 2.0 litre M47 diesel engine to replace Rover’s very competent but unexciting L Series diesel. The BMW engine was mated to either a ZF manual gearbox or a Jatco automatic (similar to that used with the KV6 petrol engine and again a powertrain combination taken from the Rover 75). Badged as the ‘TD4’, the BMW diesel variant would quickly come to dominate Freelander sales in markets other than North America. Sales of the 1.8 litre K Series petrol Freelander would continue through the car’s remaining production life, but in steadily decreasing numbers.

Quality Improvements

It’s sady true that earlier Freelanders had more quality problems than they should have had. Most of those problems, if not all, were however successfully resolved as production continued and it’s therefore also true to say that the later cars (more or less those built during Ford’s ownership of Land Rover, from 2001 onwards) were at least the equal of their market rivals in terms of quality and in some instances they were better.

Further engineeering and trim improvements for the 2002 model year followed and for 2004 the Freelander was facelifted with a new look front and rear (the lighting and radiator grille treatment following the styling of other recent Land Rover models), plus once again a trim make-over in the cabin, this time accompanied by an up to date all-new fascia. Each time changes were made, the quality of the Freelander and, most importantly the public’s perception of its quality, improved greatly.

The one quality spectre that refused to go away, though, was the head gasket failure problem with the 1.8 K Series petrol engine. Unfortunately it was an issue with which all of Rover’s K Series family engines suffered and while Rover and Land Rover worked hard on effective solutions for it, the reputation has never gone away. That’s a crying shame, because with the fixes that became available (pressure relief thermostat, multi layer steel head gasket, strengthened oil rail - all highlighted in this catalogue, of course!) it’s perfectly possible to run a perfectly reliable 1.8 litre K Series in your Freelander.

And on to Freelander 2

Freelander production died, slightly prematurely in 2006, a victim of the collapse of MG?Rover a year before. While the TD4’s diesel engine from BMW was very popular, the loss of manufacture of the two petrol engines that came from MG?Rover (despite Land Rover stockpiling a large supply of them) hit Freelander hard - especially the loss of the KV6 unit, which meant the end of Freelander sales in North America. The expensive tools that made the new bumpers, lights and fascia fitted from the 2004 model year onwards had hardly had time to pay for themselves by the time production stopped.

Ford, no doubt seeing the writing on the wall with MG Rover for some time (and not wanting to carry on buying BMW diesel engines any longer than they had to), had already decided to completely re-design the Freelander in their quest to fit the model with Ford powertrains. Freelander 2 duly appeared in late 2006 (almost seamlessly following on from the end of Freelander), reviving and then continuing the remarkable sales success of its predecessor. But then that’s another story, for another day.

For some years, Freelander topped the Sports Utility Vehicle sales charts - testimony if any was needed that the Land Rover and Rover staff who saw the gap below the Discovery and came up with Project Lifestyle were right on the button. The Freelander that Project Lifestyle eventually became changed the emphasis of Land Rover marketing strategy and heavily influenced the success story that is Land Rover today.