5 reasons why The Land Rover experience is the best thing you will do this year. #blogpost

To start things off, I got a half day Land Rover experience for my birthday as a surprise earlier this month and I was pretty excited! I couldn’t wait to indulge in 3 solid hours of off road fun but it was more than just fun and driving. I gained lots of skills and discovered many new things to help improve my car control ,myself as a better driver and of course how to drive over everything like a boss. So let’s set the scene! I am lucky enough to live in the home of Land Rovers Solihull so I knew that if I was doing there experience it’d have to be the best because it’s not franchised like many others are. So I got there at 8:45 to start at 9 and the experience centre looked a-mazing there were defenders, range rovers , free landers , two defender limos and a restored gem of a series 1 that I was drooling over. We sat down had some free drinks and biscuits and chilled then our instructor/guide/man of facts Rob came and sat with us with a drink, we had a good chat and he ran me through everything then we sat and rode passenger then swapped and it was me in control of my destiny… Here are five of the best reasons that the Land Rover experience is the best thing you will do ALL YEAR!

1. Interesting facts and information.

So while sitting down enjoying the drinks and just having a general chat with rob he had brought over a folder full of sheets, it was a really good guide of pretty much everything on every Land Rover model so we got chatting about transfer boxes and hill decent etc. It was a big quiz to show how much you know/don’t know about the mechanical aspects and off road techniques on a car. He gave us questions like: If descending a steep incline should you dip the clutch? Then he’d ask why and explain some stuff but once we had cleared everything up we had a deep chat into the mechanics of the cars and it was very interesting as it was like car guy in car guy deep chat so it was fun! And if you’re not too mechanically minded and aren’t into that stuff it doesn’t matter because you don’t need to know anything at all but you WILL learn lots!

2. Something for every type of driver.

After we had discussed the folder and had a good chat we headed outside to see the chariot of the day! You do have a choice of 4 vehicles to choose from: Defender , Range Rover , Discovery and Evoque. We had already chosen the vehicle online but the choice was there! That’s when I asked Rob what he thought! He said that everyone of these cars have technology to conquer any terrain apart from one which is the mighty defender! And he explained how if you were in a Range Rover the technology and gadgets on it would pretty much drive you instead of you drive the vehicle but in a defender you only have traction control and anti stall so as a keen driver I was happy as my amazing girlfriend had chosen the defender. We walked past the Range Rovers and other cars and got to the car we would be using for the day and Rob told us some cool facts about the defender (not going to say any because you all need to go do this wherever you are) and he also said about the common features and areas we needed to know for the experience such as that the lowest point on a defender is the diffs and they’re located pretty much where your left leg is ( RHD ) I had no idea Land Rover defenders use the same engine and gear box as… A FORD TRANSIT ! We then hopped in with Rob driving for the first section….

3. Techniques you can use everyday that will save your ass.

Rob drove us onto the off road section and told us the basics on how everything worked inside the car and just how to position yourself and make sure you don’t wrap those thumbs around the steering wheel because they can be broken off. He then drove though a small pond and showed us how we should go up and down the steep inclines in the area then he parked back up and it was my turn to take drive YAY! I was excited as you can imagine so we drove off to a part I hadn’t seen it was called the Jungle Trail. That’s where Rob taught me how to wade through deep water and navigate it too! I was driving through this river and it was DEEP! So deep that the footwells filled up with water and the passengers simply lifted there feet while I couldn’t just lift my feet off the pedals! We got through though and went back onto the big course… While on it I was overflowing with excitement inside I learnt how to use traction control to my advantage and learnt how to go up and down inclines as well as control the car on funky surfaces (will explain on point 5) all in all I felt as if I gained lots of information and learnt a lot of new skills to make me a more prepared driver on the roads!

4. Enjoyable for everyone.

Now this experience is enjoyable for everyone and I mean everyone! Okay maybe not the old and frail but if they can cope with a some violent suspension travel take them along! As everyone knows cars like Ferrari’s , Atom’s and Lamborghini’s have a very limited amount of seats so you can’t really take anyone apart from the instructor with you but on this you can have many passengers! You can fill the car up and enjoy with everyone so it’s perfect if you want to go as a group! The techniques are valuable and the information is easy to take in and understand for any level of enthusiast or just anyone really it’s a top experience and you don’t need to be going 200mph to be having so much fun you’re on the brink of dribbling.

5. It’s a vehicular playground of fun.

Now this is the best bit, I went on this experience thinking I was just going to go through some mud, water and gravel… I was really wrong , REALLY. The capabilities and versatility of these Land Rovers are incredible! We did start off wading through deep water and going up and down inclines but then we moved onto side slopes where it felt as if we were about to tip over onto our side. After that we went over a concrete pipe thing what I imagine sewers are made from and we did some steep hills all of this was with this amazing anti stall control that they are fitted with, it’s incredible it holds idle perfectly but will carry you up anything given the circumstances. Anyway after some standard off roading we moved onto some stairs! Yes stairs! One side was stairs then the other was a slope then it switched to the opposite so obviously the car would lose traction on the stair side some way but it went straight up them! After that we then moved onto railway sleepers now that was seriously bumpy and it felt like my bones were shaking to pieces but it was so fun my foot was over the accelerator but the anti stall carried me right through! Then we did some more steep slopes and came to a rock crawling section which didn’t really look like the defender was going to get up it and looking at the rocks there had been a lot of stuck cars spinning on the rocks. I gave it a go with optimism but I came to the same fate as everyone probably does and I was stuck, I reversed down and tried again after Rob had given me some good words of advice so I could learn how to tackle this part and I did manage to navigate my way all the way up second go! Onwards we went on our adventure , we found four HUGE pot holes these were full wheel pot holes offset so that diagonal wheels would go in and there were mirrors on the side and front , rob purposely told me to go slow in a low gear so we got stuck and then I witnessed the traction control and it pulled us out amazingly and I got to see it working via the mirrors which you don’t really get to see when driving. Finally we went up a steep hill again and came to what looked like a bridge to nowhere IT WAS A SEE SAW! A SEE SAW I was so excited we drove onto this see saw and when it was balanced right we went down on it and we went and parked back up in the car park.

After such an amazing experience we went back in and had some more drinks and biscuits with Rob and carried on talking then he left us too it and we had a look around the shop and said bye! If you were on a full day experience you get a tour of the factory as well as some other things so it can be even better! This is an experience that is well worth your time it really is special and I highly recommend it to everyone!
It was my first experience and I’m hoping to do more eventually.

I hope you enjoyed reading this about my day out. Thank you.