It's actually an early 80s design Andy. The main front structure is very similar to the Austin Montego, which came out in 84. The wishbones, subframe design and buckhead all are almost identical to the Montego, which is testament as to how good the Montego actually was. The later Maestro was also based on the Montego underpinnings. The K and L series manual gearbox was also from the Montego, modified to take the IRD. This is probably why the Maestro van was used as a test mule, as it was easy for the Land Rover development team to utilise a shell that didn't need huge amounts of redesign to get the Freelander 1 parts to fit. If you ever get to look under a Montego, you'll see just how similar they are in design. It was tried and tested, so LR didn’t do much to alter what already worked for them.Any Land Rover is better than no Land Rover
Can’t understand the freelander betting’s as a vehicle design in the 90s off BL van
it turned out excellent
all the Freelander hater’s probably never drove one
