OFF THE BEATEN TRACK

Buy right and an early Freelander is a solid off-road option

- JOHN EVANS

Got around £3000 to spend and looking for a comfortable, practical, almost go-anywhere four-wheel-drive family car that, if bought wisely, might even go up in value? Allow us to present to you the original Land Rover Freelander of 1997 to 2006.

True, the Mk1 Freelander doesn't have a great reputation for reliability, but with only a few still left, there's a higher proportion of gold among the garbage. In any case, it's still a handsome and interesting SUV with a string of Land Rover firsts to its name: the first to be of unibody construction, to have independent suspension all-round and to have a transverse engine. Plus it was the first vehicle to have a computerised hill descent control (HDC) system, at least on higher-spec models to begin with, until it later became standard. It was also Gerry McGovern's first Land Rover design project. The public loved it, and its success financed a raft of new models.