Land Rover Freelander

The Land Rover Freelander is a compact crossover SUV or "lifestyle 4WD"[1] made by the British company Land Rover; a subsidiary of Tata Motors. The current generation is sold as the LR2 in North America, as opposed to Freelander 2 in Europe. It is built on a unibody structure unlike traditional SUVs which use the more rugged body-on-frame structure.[2]

The Freelander, wholly designed with Land Rover owned by the Rover Group, was born after market research in the late 1980s suggested that a market for compact off-roaders was likely to develop. In the early 1990s Rover Group had a very restricted product development budget and looked for a partner to develop the Freelander project, which was codenamed CB40 (after Canley Building 40, where the concept was initially developed). Rover's then-partner Honda declined and chose to develop its own CR-V model, which launched in 1997. Rover decided to go it alone with the CB40, which meant using parts from a limited parts bin, as it had done with the MGF roadster. Although BMW took over Rover Group in 1994, they did not get heavily involved in the development of the Freelander. The car was launched in 1997. It became Europe's best-selling four-wheel drive model until 2002.[citation needed] The last Freelanders in North America were sold as 2005 models. The Freelander 2 debuted at the 2006 British International Motor Show. While the new model retained the Freelander nameplate in Europe, it was marketed as LR2 in North America (mirroring the marketing of the new third generation Land Rover Discovery as LR3). Preceding the official debut, a private presentation at the Kensington Roof Gardens had been held for journalists, featuring celebrity tennis player Maria Sharapova.[4] The second generation Freelander is based on the EUCD platform, which itself is based on the C1 platform. The EUCD platform will be used by more upcoming vehicles from Volvo. The engine range is all-new for Freelander, featuring transversely-mounted 3.2 litre I6 engine of the Volvo SI6 series, which first debuted in the new Volvo S80, as well as the 2.2 litre DW12 common rail turbodiesel engine, co-developed by PSA Peugeot Citroën.