Category: Small 4x4s 
Price Range: £21,295 to £34,652
Looks good, feels agile, goes well, supremely capable off-road. Roomy, nicely finished and well equipped.
Top models are expensive, ride is firm in the back, fake wood trim option is nasty, no manual option for six-cylinder petrol model.
The Freelander grows up into the best all-rounder in the class, it's a little expensive compared to the competition - but worth it.
Owners of the old car will be very interested in this section, because the original Freelander was not a paragon of reliability, especially when powered by a K-Series petrol engine intolerant of neglect. Those engines have gone now and the new car's engines, though new themselves, have reliable pedigrees. Many of the other systems are already used in other Ford or PAG products.
The previous Freelander was a mish-mash of hard plastic mouldings inside which sat badly with the premium pretensions, but this time it's the real deal. There's plenty of padding in the cabin's upper reaches, the windscreen pillars are fabric-covered and the harder mouldings lower down are neatly fitted together. More soft-touch finishing would have been good, though, and only the top HSE models get a leather-rim steering wheel - something fitted even to basic Fiestas. The fake-wood trim is nasty, too, especially the piece below the key slot with its moulded-in ridges; real wood just doesn't do that. The alternative brushed-aluminium look suits the Freelander's aura much better. Panel gaps are nice and tight and the structure feels solid and creak-free even when off-roading.
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