In August, your favorite TCB editor was a guest at an exclusive Land Rover off-road driving event. It was co-sponsored by the magazine Town & Country, and was headquartered in a mansion about 30 miles west of Washington, D.C. I drove the brand new Range through a forest walkway, sat in and played with the new LR3 (before it was officially launched in the U.S.) and ate posh food that even Martha Stewart would have been proud to serve.

In August, your favorite TCB editor was a guest at an exclusive Land Rover off-road driving event. It was co-sponsored by the magazine Town & Country, and was headquartered in a mansion about 30 miles west of Washington, D.C. I drove the brand new Range through a forest walkway, sat in and played with the new LR3 (before it was officially launched in the U.S.) and ate posh food that even Martha Stewart would have been proud to serve.

We Roll Up

I attended the event with my friend Heather, who insisted we take her BMW just because my little Civic wouldn’t cut it when parked next to S55 AMGs and quarter-to-eight bimmers. When you’re invited to an event only held in four venues across the country, and less than 40 people are invited to each one, you don’t roll up in anything coming from Honda.

No less than 3 Land Rover employees ran out to greet us the instant we pulled into the parking lot (and by parking lot, I mean “foothill of the mansion”) so right off the bat we knew this was big time. They were all seemed very happy to see us, and then walked us up to the registration table where we signed our life away in exchange for a private off-road Range Rover driving tutorial. Okay, maybe it wasn’t such a bad idea in hindsight.

The Posh Life

Right past the registration table was the Town & Country-decorated lounge area complete with free hors d’oeuvres that included a plate filled up with crab cakes. Not cheapo crab cakes, but the big ass ones the size of hockey pucks. They were free, so I ate like 5. C’mon now, you would too. We lounged in massive leather-clad, mediterranean-styled club chairs while Range Rover representatives fed us grapes off of gilded trays and told us we were beautiful — well not really, but you get the idea.

The Drive

Heather and I joined another couple in a brand new Range Rover HSE that was initially piloted by a world-renowned off-road driving instructor. He told us that he was a Navy SEAL for over 10 years and specialized in driving amphibious assault vehicles before being hired by Land Rover to head up their driving school in southern California, so this guy was no joke.

We finally turned off from the highway, and made a left into what can only be described as a “ditch doubling as a driveway” which led to a secluded private piece of property on the side of a forested mountain. We switched drivers and now it was my turn to pilot this beast.

If you’ve ever been on a hike in the middle of the woods, and are familiar with traditional hiking trail sizes, please keep those dimensions in mind because I drove a huge freakin’ Range Rover through the woods via a regular hiking trail. If you’ve never been on a hike before, then imagine a forested track the exact width of the front of a Range Rover, with trees on all sides and overhanging branches everywhere. I dropped the Range into Hill-Descent mode and crept through the wooded brush like a farmer driving a tractor through a corn field, except this tractor was built in England.

I must have smacked the side-view mirrors on trees at least 5 times, because there was no way in hell I could navigate this four-wheel drive behemoth through a heavily-wooded area without trading some paint for bark. The instructor kept saying how good of a job I was doing, but I can’t imagine I was that good seeing as how I’ve never steered a $70,000+ machine around beachball-sized boulders before.

Really Off-Road

We made it up to a clearing and then viewed a mud-laden bog with a sloped perimeter that oddly reminded me of a soiled toilet bowl. Now it was time to see how this Range could really handle the elements, because we were about to take it on an 18° lateral incline over boulders embedded deep in the muddy terrain. Words don’t do the environment any justice, but here, take a look at this picture. Notice how the entire front wheel of the automobile is off the ground at least 5 feet.

I can’t explain the sensation you feel when your brain says “Holy shit! This car is going to flip over sideways and you’re going to go face-down into the mud!” but the Range held its ground. Our instructor said that the new HSE’s suspension can hold tight to a 22° lateral shift, but I wasn’t about to go any further because this one made me queasy enough. And here’s one more picture: (Note: the Range Rover was not stuck in this picture, it made it through the mud just fine.)

The day that I need to buy a 4×4 vehicle for some serious off-roading, there’s no way in the world I’m going to purchase anything other than a Range Rover. The suspension in this baby can hydraulically lift the frame over a foot higher than the normal riding height, and just experiencing the suspension move this vehicle through a forest was incredible. Damn, just go buy one already.