Our first ever Land Rover (as a family) was a 1992 Range Rover Vogue SE of which I have dedicated a whole page to elsewhere on this site! After the demise of this Classic Range Rover, the next car to enter our ownership was an ‘S’ registration (1998) 50th Anniversary Freelander. This was a 1.8 petrol model, which had a manual transmission. The paintwork was incredible, a two tone blue/green colour. It drove well, and unlike many of its peers, we never personally suffered any head gasket issues. Dad only kept it for 3 years, but we enjoyed every minute of it.
The 50th Anniversary Freelander was then replaced by the ‘Y’ (2001) registration TD4 Freelander. The main reason for the change was the transmission. Dad wanted an Automatic. The TD4 has the BMW diesel engine, which is a little more reliable than the old 1.8 Rover K series petrol. I still have this vehicle however it is going through a bit of a renovation as its tired, and needs some TLC.
The next car was my first personally owned Land Rover, another Freelander. This was a ‘V’ reg (1999) Xi petrol, manual, that I got off EBay for £1100. It turned out to be an utter lemon! I poured a lot of money into this, replacing parts inside and out. The body work and trim were in perfect condition, but the mechanics and engine ultimately let it down. Unfortunately, I eventually re-sold it on EBay.
In November 2012, I got a 54 plate (2004) Freelander. It was a 1.8 petrol model – face-lifted, had the obligatory head gasket renewed – also an ES. Anyone who owns one of these vehicles must appreciate the need to have two, as one or the other is always off the road! I eventually sold this and at the start of 2018 I purchased a Range Rover Vogue 53 plate (2003) TD6 – 3 litre diesel. I got this from a friend who had owned it from new, and we had a lot of fun in this car. I only had it from February through to November of the same year, forced to get rid of it due to running costs.
In November of 2018 we got an (almost) new 2017 Discovery Sport HSE Luxury. It was much more car-like than any of the other Land Rovers but was still a lot of fun to drive. There were a few issues with the Disco which meant it spent some time back at the dealership, then Covid and Lockdown hit, so we didn’t get to use it as much as planned. It did well touring Scotland, but ultimately I sold it in November 2021. For anyone who purchased the Disco Sport – I discovered there is no Paint Code written anywhere on the vehicle, however I found an old piece of paperwork from Land Rover that said it was Santorini Black. I am writing a seperate page about this car, and the PCP finance, which will be published shortly.
1998 50th Anniversary Freelander – Apologies for the very poor quality images. These were taken with an original Casio QV-10 digital camera, made in the mid 1990’s. I had to convert them to JPG’s.
1999 Freelander 1 Xi
2004 Freelander
2003 Range Rover
2017 Discovery Sport HSE Luxury