News : Land Rover launches Heritage Driving Experience

Craig Cheetham

Fancy a drive in this little lot?
Fancy a drive in this little lot?

Land Rover has launched a new experience centre, allowing fans to get behind the wheel of some of the company’s most iconic classic vehicles. The new Land Rover Heritage Driving Experience is based at Land Rover’s customer test facility in Fen End near Kenilworth, Warwickshire.

Fans and customers can experience Land Rover’s rich heritage through driving vehicles from the Series I which started the legend in 1948, to famous military vehicles such as the 101 Forward Control transporter and the iconic classic Range Rover on and off-road at a new customer facility in the heart of the UK.

A variety of packages will be available allowing visitors to focus on a particular decade or era, or to journey through Land Rover’s heritage, right up to the present day line-up. Professional instructors will be on hand to provide direction, interesting facts and anecdotes to ensure visitors get the most pleasure and excitement from their time on the circuit or on the new off-road track. Customers will also have the opportunity to view stunning vehicle exhibits in detail and browse a fully-stocked merchandise outlet.

Land Rover packages start at £40 for passenger rides with an expert Land Rover Experience instructor. Land Rover Heritage Experience packages include:

The Series I, II and III vs Modern Defender (£85)
Drive a Series I, II or III, followed by today’s vehicle they became – the Defender. See how Land Rover’s adventurous DNA has passed from generation to generation, and how these classic machines took on the world’s toughest terrains.

Land Rover Historic Drives (£90)
The opportunity to drive the vehicles that started the legend, both on and off-road, choose from an original Series Land Rover, a classic Range Rover or a more unusual creation – the 101 Forward Control – a transporter designed for the British Army.

Range Rover Then And Now (£125)
Compare the classic Range Rover with its 2015 off-spring, both on and off-road. Time behind the wheel includes a track induction for a higher speed experience, and time off-road putting both cars through their all-terrain paces.

Land Rover – The Collection (£250)
The full Land Rover Experience incorporates all the key models in the brand’s history from the 1940s right up to the 2010s, including the Series Land Rovers, special military vehicles, collectible expedition-prepared vehicles and the modern line-up from Defender to Range Rover.

Complementing the newly introduced Land Rover experiences, a range of Jaguar experiences are also available:

Jaguar Experience (from £95)
Passenger rides and driving alongside a seasoned professional, visitors can choose from individual models such as an XK150 or Mark II saloon, or selected pairings such as the Series 1 and Series 3 E-type, or even an E-type with its modern counterpart, the F-TYPE.

Le Mans Experience (£750)
Re-live the experiences of legends such as Mike Hawthorn and Duncan Hamilton with drives in the iconic C and D-types that dominated the world famous 24-hour endurance race in the 1950s. This package also features drives in an XKSS and F-TYPE R Coupé, and includes lunch.

Grace and Pace Experience (£2,000)
This is a full day of driving Jaguar Heritage legends, from post-war racers to sports saloons, coupés, roadsters and much more, including the new XFR and F-TYPE R Coupé models. The Grace and Pace day also features opportunities to drive creations from the company’s Special Operations division, and includes chauffeur-driven transfers to lunch.

Further packages are available as well as a number of gift voucher and special promotional packages as new models are added to the experience.  Visit www.heritagedriving.co.uk for more details.

 

Craig Cheetham

8 Comments

  1. This should be good fun, I was lucky enough to do a Defender driving experience day at Solihull last week which I really enjoyed.

  2. I’m all for using museum pieces like these, but how long are they going to last doing this?! I’d hate them to get trashed.

    The modern Land Rover Experience cars get enough of a hard time (I certainly would avoid buying one used), but at least they can easily be replaced.

    • Thanks for bringing us down to earth(there is always somebody itching to that on this website!) – As noted below I’m sure these wont be landmark vehicles. There will be very close supervision of how they are used and I suspect there is no one better than JLR themselves to pick up the pieces if the worst should happen.

      • Sorry, I didn’t mean to be “bringing us down”, but there is some very nice and interesting machinery that they will be taking off road there.
        Have you been on a Land Rover Experience day recently? They are great fun, but not for the feint hearted and certainly not for vehicles with very limited parts availability!
        I hope they’ve got that covered, because is like to take them up on this!

  3. I don’t believe these are the ‘milestone’ examples from the Heritage Motor Centre’s collection (many of which have now been ‘reclaimed’ by Land Rover for its own off-site private display which the public won’t get a chance to see). I am guessing they are supplementary examples acquired on an individual basis or as part of a large collection.

    After all, I would be the first to publicly criticise Land Rover if they allowed the very last Range Rover Classic or the first one to be used as part of this initiative, as they are irreplaceable. Just like all the other ‘milestone’ first and last and Royalty association examples are.

  4. Great! This got me thinking … how about the XJ220 v Range Rover Challenge? Around the track in both, then off road? Or perhaps not …

    Or The Sweeney Package?! Chased round Fen End by a Ford Granada in a late sixties S-Type, finally skidding through some bins and jumping over a ramp, coming to a stop with the bootlid open.

    Or the Daimler Double Six Experience? I think I could spend a whole morning just driving one of these round and round …

    Better still, the ‘Arthur Daley Day’ (geddit?). You and friend given choice of brown leather jacket or sheepskin coat and hat. Take yellow XJ6 for a few circuits, then directed off track to a lock-up round the back. Open the garage door to find it full of betamax videos. After some heated words, open all the doors of the car and strike poses while ‘I could be so Good For You’ plays in background.

    Finally, a ‘copper’ arrives in a Talbot Avenger and ‘nicks’ you both, taking you away for the lunch to finish.

    I think I should go and have a lie down!

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