2006 Land Rover LR3

When Dana Brown's movie "Dust to Glory," a visceral account of the Baja 1000 off-road race, came out last year, the Land Rover North America boys just up the road in Irvine, California probably politely declined to see it. Why? The sole intent of Baja racers is to roost down the gnarliest stretch of rocky trail as fast as is reliably possible. Which is exactly the opposite of Land Rover's approach. With a motto of "as slow as possible and as fast as necessary," theirs is a kinder, gentler vision of off-road travel. But you can hardly blame them—in Australia, Borneo or Madagascar, there may be no helicopters to fly new suspension dampers and axles in, no chase trucks to pull you out of gullies, and no medivac planes to whisk you in for servicing at shock trauma.

Style

This may seem a bit off the point of what the 2006 Land Rover LR3 is all about, but the essence is this: Land Rover believes the best rewards are found in going slowly, driving carefully, and treading lightly. If you're ready to accept this notion, step aboard the LR3.


Replacing the maligned Discovery in Land Rover's lineup in 2005, it slots midway between the company's entry-level Freelander and the range-topping Range Rover. Carrying a base price of $38,285, the LR3 features a four-liter V6 engine (a V8 is optional for $44,785, as is a luxurious $52,785 HSE model), flexible seating for five (with seven-passenger seating optional), and a host of usable features for wayward travel. More LR3s will probably hit the speed bumps at Starbucks than will ever hit trails in Baja, which is too bad since they're fully capable off-road machines. The drive system is particularly impressive. It includes full-time four-wheel drive, a two-speed transfer case for serious climbing and even a center locking differential for truly nasty going—like hip-deep Amazon mud or murderous rock piles—plus various electronic aids.

Comfort

We tested the LR3 on the steep mountain adjacent to Willow Springs International Raceway in the California desert, and can report amazing capabilities. With the drive system in low-range, the LR3 crawled over rocks, squeezed through narrow ravines, and up the scariest things in off-roading—steep, loose off-camber hills. The dirt bike rider's motto would be to pin the throttle and go for it when encountering such obstacles, for gaining and maintaining inertia is often the best approach to climbing impossible slopes. But that approach simply isn't in Land Rover's lexicon, nor is it the driving engineering force behind the LR3. Instead, with rock-crawler steadiness, the LR3 simply creeps uphill, at a tortoise's pace perhaps, and no less steadily. Need to stop and pray when you're halfway up? A hill-holding feature ensures that the machine won't roll backwards if you take your foot off the gas.


Once we scaled the mountain, we discovered that it was almost impossible to see down the other side without getting out of the vehicle for reconnaissance. What we saw alarmed us: An even steeper slope dropping into a blind canyon, at the bottom of which we'd have to make a hard right turn to get out. Putting the LR3's shifter into low, we activated Hill Descent Control (HDC), took our foot off the brake and let the vehicle govern its own speed on the way down. HDC automatically applies individual brakes, typically limiting the LR3 to 5.6 mph on the way down. That's slow—think of pouring molasses on a Monmouth winter day and you get the idea. Unaided by the driver except for a few small steering inputs, the LR3 oozed down the slope, where it was easily braked to a stop, turned and then pointed out of the canyon to safety.