Flybe / February 2018

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FEBRUARY 55
CONCIERGE DOWN TIME
makes of vehicle, and 1,750 cars a day.
These include the Range Rover Velar and
the ever-popular bespoke customer cars.
(Hot-pink paintwork all over, anyone? Just
Katie Price, then.) As a visitor, you can be
chauffeur-driven around the plant, which
had £1.5bn-worth of investment last year,
and get a real insight into the workings: a
must for any fans of the green oval.
As well as boasting 15 miles of off-
road tracks, which you can tackle in the
Land Rover of your choice, Solihull’s
Jaguar Land Rover Experience has a
new attraction: The Range Rover Story
Exhibition, a 90-minute tour taking you
on a journey from 1966 to the present
day. The combination of attractions is a
winning one for tourists, people buying
gift experiences, corporate groups, hen
and stag parties or just people who’ve
bought a vehicle with 4x4 capability who
want to see what it can do. There are
various options and packages, so you can
take a tour, have lunch then go driving, or
whichever combination you want. It’s even
become a holiday attraction, Phil told me,
with people flying in and coming along
as one of their stops on a tour of the UK.
Located just a few miles from Birmingham
airport, it’s very accessible – oh, and they
do also have a field where you can land
your helicopter if you want to. I know this
because apparently that’s how Kate and
Wills arrived when they visited the week
before me to create a Top Gear-style video
of them racing over rocky terrain.
My visit started in the exhibition,
which begins with the sounds of the
sixties and shows you the story from the
conception of the Range Rover, with its
different guises, complete with full-scale
clay prototype, through its rise to fame,
appearances in Vogue and relationships
with royalty, to a big glitzy reveal of the
latest in the family: the Range Rover
Velar. You can climb inside this gleaming
specimen and salivate at its luxurious
cabin full of touchscreens and tech, if
you so wish. It’s an interesting exhibition,
and you even come away with a big
poster sketch of an early Range Rover
design. Unless that’s just for children. I’m
not sure if they were humouring me.
The off-road course has been on this
site since 1947, when it was the original
test facility for the Series I Land Rover.
Obviously, it’s now got additional areas
designed to test and showcase the
latest top-of-the-range models and their
incredible capability. But ‘The Jungle’, as
it’s known, is still there. Having boarded
a Range Rover Sport, and undergone a
safety briefing, I was soon discovering it
myself, driving through what seemed like
a swamp, with water stretching ahead
of me as the vehicle effortlessly glided
through it. It was very deep, and very
peaceful, and I couldn’t help but admire
the view, as I gazed down serenely at the
water level gauge being displayed on the
LED screen before me.
But this was nothing like what I
remembered about off-roading! Where
was the panic of not being sure if you’d get
stuck and have to be winched out? Why
was I not cold? And why was it so relaxing?
Well, that’s the wonder of the modern
Range Rover and its terrain response,
automatic suspension, drive assist and
hill descent controls – and of course, the
patient instruction of Phil, who was telling
me which controls to use when. It was an
odd feeling being behind the wheel of such
a large vehicle, sometimes balancing at
some rather unsettling angles, after the tiny
dimensions of my little Fiat, but it was very
impressive just how controlled it felt.
How was it?
If you’re lucky enough to own a 4x4
and you haven’t done this, I’d definitely
recommend giving it a go – you’ll love
your car even more. And if you’re just
looking for a new experience, maybe you
need to be driving along through a swamp
with water splashing over your wheels, or
my favourite, driving onto a swing bridge
(see picture) with just a sheer drop in front
of you, waiting for it to tip when you get
the balance right, then rolling down it.
And as I drove along steep side slopes,
up and down potholed hills and along
squelchy, uneven muddy tracks through
the wet woodland, it was all a real walk in
the park – thanks to the car I was driving
and the brilliant team behind it.
Jaguar Land Rover Experience
Solihull
Block 66, Lode Lane
Solihull
West Midlands
B92 8NW
www.solihull.landroverexperience.