Chapeau! I tip my hat to the LR2 – a fabulous machine off-road! Since it's supposed to be a 4x4, I took the LR2 onto the sand track, gentle and ginger at first, to see if it would cope – I ended up confidently pelting down sebkha and up sand dunes at full blast! The LR2 was brilliant off-road, and I'm very surprised I don't see more of them out and about.
That's the truth – a little diamond in the rough, the LR2 was an absolute blast on the sand, better than most other 4x4-wannabes that I won't mention here. Better even than many established 4x4s! Let's see why...
The "baby" Land Rover is not the Freelander, they kept telling me at the showroom. I wondered why, so I set off to find out.
Well, firstly, I never test-drove the Freelander so I can't really say firsthand, but by all accounts it didn't excite the automotive world much. So the good folks at Land Rover went back to the chalkboard and started from scratch – firstly rebirthing the tired Discovery into the LR3, and now the LR2 (which suspiciously enough had Freelander II pasted on the owner's manual).
I did testdrive the LR3 extensively, including a 3,000 km trip to Salalah, so I was well familiar with the capabilities of that vehicle (excellent all-rounder, by the way, and I loved the Terrain Response system) and so here's what I found about its little brother, the LR2 – probably the most responsive Land Rover yet.
On-road it is a comfortable front-wheel drive SUV, with apparently enough power also going to the rear wheels so that if grip conditions suddenly demand more power there is some traction at the back.
Very comfortable, very easy to drive, the LR2 is a small SUV that does the shopping-cart duty well, that transports the kids to school and back, and all that other routine tarmac driving, and it does so with ease.
But off-road is where the surprises abound!
Firstly, it is light. And being light is the first rule for getting good power. Well, actually, it's the power-to-weight ratio, which is a very efficient way of comparing vehicles by the way: divide horsepower by kerb weight.
The official dictionary definition is: power-to-weight ratio (specific power) is a calculation commonly applied to engines and other mobile power plants to enable the comparison of one unit or design to another.
Power-to-weight ratio is a measurement of actual performance of any engine or power plant. In practice, this means the LR2 screams along sand tracks, feeling a bit like a dune buggy!
The six cylinders' performance figures – 230 hp at 6,300 rpm and 234 lb-ft of torque at 3,200 rpm – may not sound too exciting in a world of big V8s, but clever cam profiling and variable induction give it the sort of grunt you need in an SUV.
In fact, the "little" LR2 can run rings around most of the competition.
Secondly, the sport mode of the six-speed automatic transmission also features manual sequential shifting. It's also a dynamic package on the road, with strong throttle response in the lower ranges, and banging the gears sequentially allows for quiet sporting progress.
But off-road it is perfect for our sandy conditions, keeping the gear locked in long enough to maximise the wheel spin required to progress on sand.
On tarmac, in regular auto mode (not sport) I did fret a little over the accelerator's response, but after getting used to the exact pressure required, I did manage to settle into smooth starts.
Off-road, of course, one does not worry about these things, except if stuck in soft sand, that is! And that's where the third component of this fantastic 4x4 machine comes into play – the selectable Special Terrain Response.
By turning a convenient dial, the LR2 engine management computer automatically re-adjusts engine power and gear shifts to offer the best combination for the terrain selected.
So, for the Sand setting, the gears are held longer and the shifts are phenomenally rapid, and the power range shifts to higher revolutions, to keep the engine lively and the
wheels spinning. Also the sissy traction control is automatically disabled temporarily so that wheel spin is not curtailed.
The result? Well, not to brag, but I went everywhere and did everything that my mates could not do on that day. The "little" LR2, without forcing or risking damage, and certainly without risking injury, dominated completely.
A stellar performance.
As for the soft sand mentioned above, again, the Terrain Response took care of starting off in very soft sand – simply engage the Snow setting (yes, a little counter-intuitive, but it's just a label and the driver must understand what it does) and the LR2 cleverly starts off in 2nd gear, taking care not to spin the wheels, and gently moves you out.
And then simply switch back to Sand mode. One thing which might have an impact on this fun-loving sand-churning monster is the limited travel of the suspension.
While the LR3 Terrain Response also adjusts the suspension, the more economically-priced LR2 does not; it has a (very good) regular fully independent suspension, and so hard knocks are best avoided.
Ground clearance is pretty good, though, at 21 cm of clearance under the front axle, an approach angle of
29 degrees, a departure angle of 32 degrees, and a wading depth of nearly 51 cm; so you'd really have to drive into a ditch to bottom-out the suspension.
With the Terrain Response system, I didn't even notice the lack of a low-range transfer case – it just wasn't needed. Yet, off-road rave over, I didn't get the feel that Land Rover was aiming for a vehicle with such off-road potential.
The exterior design and interior airy comfort made me feel like the off-road prowess that I appreciated so much was just incidental, as if to say, "Of course it fares well off-road, old chap, it's a Land Rover!"
My family, and indeed I, suspect most other motorists in the UAE would not even consider the LR2 a desert machine. Looking at the big wheel arches, solid headlamps and that imposing front grille, one does not intuitively think "sand tracks at speed"!
It is a good-looking car, in my opinion. I found its dimensions well-balanced, even the longish nose fit in nicely into the overall look and feel.
The steering was light and responsive, the interior well-finished and spacious, and the seats were comfortable.
Overall, I liked the LR2 very much. I could see it fitting in very
well with my dual lifestyle of family chauffeur and weekend warrior, and that extra oomph in the off-road sector really made my test-drive a memorable one.
Paolo Rossetti is an Al Ain-based
freelance writer.
