Jaguar Land Rover revamps classic experience

Classic car buffs, together with off-road enthusiasts are being given the chance to indulge their passions and celebrate an important chapter in the West Midlands’ automotive heritage.

Jaguar Land Rover Classic has launched a brand new Classic Drive event at Eastnor Castle, near Ledbury allowing guests to experience the terrain where Land Rover honed many of its legendary all-terrain vehicles.

For the first time, they can also get behind the wheel of some of the most beautiful Jaguars ever made.

Based at the 5,000-acre estate in Herefordshire, the new Classic Drive experience will see visitors tackling Eastnor’s thick mud and challenging slopes in some of the vehicles that helped establish the Land Rover legend.

The Land Rover story began with the Series I in 1948, a spartan but unstoppable four-wheel-drive vehicle originally designed for farm and industrial use. This Classic Drive experience offers guests a rare insight into where Land Rover’s off-road DNA was developed from the early 1960s by getting them behind the wheel of an early Series I.

The Series I Land Rover at Eastnor Castle

Such was the popularity and capability of the Series I that it led to a series of successors and the vehicle remained in constant production until 2016 when the curtain fell on a British icon, axed due to tougher emissions legislation.

The model was christened the Defender in the 1990s to separate it from Land Rover’s emerging portfolio, but prior to the Defender’s arrival Land Rover continuously developed its ‘Series’ models. The Series III, introduced in 1971, offered refinements on Land Rover’s go-anywhere formula. With nearly 500,000 Series IIIs sold, it was the car that really took Land Rover to the world, and Classic Drive guests can now try one of the Series III vehicles for themselves.

In 1970, Land Rover launched the Range Rover, delivering the same off-road ability as the more rugged Series models, but with more of an emphasis on luxury and comfort. It marked the beginning of the Range Rover brand, which has since become one of the most recognisable and respected luxury off-road badges in the world.

Reflecting this, a first-generation model has been added to the Experience collection ready for guests to try on Eastnor Castle’s challenging off-road tracks.

Once guests are finished testing some of Land Rover’s most iconic vehicles, they will be able to take the wheel of some of Jaguar’s sporting legends.

From the late 1950s is the XK150, the last in the line of XK sports cars, which began with the XK120 in 1948.

However, when it came time for the XK150 to be replaced in the 1960s the company came up with the model for which it is most synonymous, the E-type.

Classic Jaguars at the Eastnor estate

Visitors can experience the thrill of driving both a Series 1 E-type and the later Series 3 variant.

But Jaguar’s reputation for ‘grace, pace and space’ wasn’t just built on sports cars; it also had a number of famous saloon models, including the Mk2. Stylish and luxurious, the Mk2 found fans among racing drivers, the police force and rather more infamously, bank robbers before going on to be best known as the car used by John Thaw in the Inspector Morse.

Tim Hannig, Director, Jaguar Land Rover Classic, said: “Jaguar and Land Rover have created some of the most beautiful and iconic British cars ever. While their DNA lives on in our modern line-up, we want people to experience where the story developed.

“Equally, the Eastnor estate has played a huge part in shaping our business, so to be able to bring a selection of our legends together in such a significant location is a real privilege.”

The Jaguar Land Rover Classic Drive Experience at Eastnor is available for bookings now, priced at £495 per driver.