Would suit:
Keen walkers.
SA price:
R279 000 - R319 500.
Performance:
180km/h, 0-100km/h in 10.3sec.
Combined fuel consumption:
7.5 litres/100km.
Computer says "No" or, at least, the automotive equivalent: "Transmission fault". How many Land Rover owners have sat and stared in impotent fury at that message, I wonder?
The man from Land Rover Assistance arrives quickly but spends a fretful hour trying to get his computer to talk to the new Land Rover Freelander TD4 that is sitting, bonnet up like a dozing crocodile, in a service station on the M20.
He is still there when my alternative ride arrives and, guiltily, I leave.
"Sorry about that," the man from the Land Rover media office phones to tell me later that day. "It's a software problem we've had with pre-production cars. It's sorted now."
Well, that may be true, but they sent me a replacement and its electronic key fell apart in my hand as I tried to remove it from the slot in the dash (the Freelander has one of those pesky starter button set-ups).
By this stage, personally, I wouldn't want a new Freelander if it came wrapped in a ribbon with a year's supply of fuel and a Sugababe in the boot.
There are some people who probably think I shouldn't be telling you all this. "This is the kind of unpatriotic rot that did for Rover!" they will harrumph to the passing ward sister, forgetting that company's woeful and greedy mismanagement, zero investment and outdated models.
"Land Rover is a great British success story. Newspapers ought to be supporting it! Where am I?" and so on.
Well, yes, Land Rover has been a success story in terms of sales over the last decade but that success has come despite raging reliability problems.
The original Freelander did an excellent job of tapping in to the modern motorist's vanities and fears by offering the ride height and aristocratic estate-romping abilities of that poshies' favourite the Range Rover at half the price.
Unfortunately, the price-cutting was obvious to anybody with a radar for shoddy materials and ham-handed construction, and became painfully evident to those who bought them and endured the recalls and breakdowns.
Though the price of the new car has increased, price-cutting is still very much a part of Freelander DNA. So, we've had the breakdown and the dodgy key: let's look at the rest of the interior...
That wood trim has got to go for starters. It's the most fake-looking wood to grace an automobile since the side panels they used to fit to Cortina estates.
If, as I suspect, the price rise was intended to pitch the Freelander against the BMW X3, well, the men in Munich must be laughing.
The X3 is better designed, better built and more spacious.
What's the point?
Shall we drive it? What's the point? We know it will accelerate like a walrus and roll like a Weeble through bends, and it does, but I hadn't expected the steering to be so bad. I never thought a car's steering could be over-responsive but this one's is and it exacerbates the Freelander's lack of poise.
I'm sure it's wonderful off-road, but who cares?
The last time I drove a car off-road it was because I was in the Gobi Desert and had no choice. Why would anyone actively seek to drive a car off-road for fun? I can't think of anything more tedious than slowly crawling across a rocky field or ploughing up the heather on a hill in Scotland.
Why don't you just go for a nice walk?
Then again, I suppose if you buy a Freelander that is most probably what you will end up doing. - The Independent, London