Land Rover Freelander
The Land Rover Freelander is a compact SUV that was manufactured and marketed by Land Rover from 1997 to 2015. The second generation was sold from 2007 to 2015 in North America and the Middle East as the LR2 and in Europe as the Freelander 2. The Freelander was sold in both two-wheel and four-wheel drive versions. The name 'Freelander' is derived from the combination of 'Freedom' and 'Lander'.
| Land Rover Freelander | |
|---|---|
Land Rover Freelander 2 Dynamic SD4 | |
| Overview | |
| Manufacturer | Land Rover |
| Production | October 1997 – January 2015 |
| Assembly | Halewood Body & Assembly, Halewood, United Kingdom Pune, India Changshu, Jiangsu, China Aqaba Assembly Plant, Jordan |
| Body and chassis | |
| Class | Compact SUV |
| Layout | Transverse front-engine, all-wheel drive or four-wheel drive |
| Chronology | |
| Successor | Land Rover Discovery Sport (5-door Version) Range Rover Evoque (3-door Version) |
After having built exclusively body-on-frame 4WD vehicles for half a century, the first generation Freelander was the brand's first model to use monocoque (unibody) structures, and was offered in three- and five-door body options, including a semi soft-top. The second generation (from 2006) dropped all two-door options, leaving only a five-door estate car-like body, and – after 62 years – became the brand's first ever to offer a two-wheel drive option (as of 2010).
After a five-year hiatus, the two-door Freelanders were succeeded by the two-door versions of the Range Rover Evoque in 2011, and the five-door generation 2 was replaced by the Discovery Sport in 2015, the nameplate spanning two generations and less than eighteen years.