North American automobile consumers had gone mad for SUVs of all sizes and styles by the daybreak of our present century, with demand so excessive that even bike-and-car-centric Honda felt compelled to leap into the fray with new designs. Land Rover, offered to Ford by BMW in 2000, had supplied sturdy body-on-frame vans right here for many years and determined the time was proper to convey the unibody Freelander over right here for the 2002 mannequin 12 months. These vans had been all four-doors, however for 2003 a two-door model with removable roof panel was launched right here: the Freelander SE3. 20 years later, here is one among these joyful little vans, discovered discarded in a self-service automobile graveyard situated close to Pikes Peak.
Two-door convertible SUVs offered properly sufficient right here throughout the Nineteen Eighties and Nineties, with such entries because the Isuzu Amigo/Rodeo Sport, Daihatsu Rocky and Suzuki Sidekick/Geo Tracker roaming the roads. Absolutely American automobile consumers of the brand new century would go wild for a British model?
Because it turned out, they did not. The 2-door Freelander received the axe after 2005.
The rear cover and entrance sunroof had been detachable, enabling the Freelander SE3 proprietor to get pleasure from semi-top-down driving. Sadly, there was no place inside to retailer the cover, so it needed to be left at house when eliminated.
The engine is a 2.5-liter DOHC V6 (right here partially disassembled), a Rover Group design initially developed to be used within the Rover 800. This one was rated at 174 horsepower and 177 pound-feet when new.
Some Freelanders had been outfitted with handbook transmissions on the opposite facet of the Atlantic, however not right here. 5-speed automatics had been obligatory within the U.S.-market variations.
This one appears to have been in good beauty form when it arrived right here, so we will assume that mechanical woes doomed it to this destiny.
Supposedly, the Freelander was extra succesful off-road than different compact CUVs.
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