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Off-Roading in a Range Rover Sport at the Driving Experience

Charlie — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 20:32:40 +0000

If you’re an off-road junkie, the Land Rover Experience Driving School is right up your alley. Land Rover creates courses that showcase Land Rover and Range Rover capabilities and strengths with the help of in-car instructors. We had the chance to take the Range Rover Sport out in the mud at the Land Rover Experience located at the Biltmore Estate in Ashville, NC and were quite impressed with the vehicle’s performance in the sloppy mud.

Check out the 2007 Range Rover Sport going off-road at the Biltmore Estate.

You can also watch 2007 Range Rover Sport Off-Road Video on YouTube.

If you want to see more on the Land Rover Experience Driving School, click here for an article about the Driving Experience as well as additional video coverage.

Getting Dirty With Land Rover

barmstead — Fri, 25 May 2007 18:35:16 +0000

You just purchased a HUMMER, Jeep Wrangler Four-Door or Nissan Xterra. You bought it to be a mad mudder, heading off road every chance you get. There’s only one problem – you’ve never been off road before, and you are sorely in need of professional instruction.

Have no fear, as Land Rover has the answer to your problem. See, if you own a Land Rover, Cadillac, Hyundai or no vehicle at all, you can still get expert instruction for off-roading at the Land Rover Experience Driving Schools. The Land Rover is the only manufacturer to offer a factory-backed off-road driving program that is open to the public year-round.

The Land Rover Experience Driving School has three North American locations – at Quail Lodge in Carmel, California; at the Fairmont Le Château Montebello in Quebec, Canada; and at the Biltmore Estate in Asheville, North Carolina.

No matter your skill level, you’ll find yourself navigating incredible off-road obstacles with the School. Steep descents down a two-track trail, tight hairpin turns with trees on each side, even climbing a pile of logs with just three wheels touching become obstacles you overcome with skills developed through lessons and programs at the Land Rover Experience Driving School.

I, along with my partner-in-crime for the event, Roadfly’s Publisher Charlie Romero, chose the Biltmore Estate School, given its close proximity to our Washington, D.C. base. We were met at the Asheville Airport by team members from the School, and traveled to the Biltmore Estate in a silver 2007 Range Rover.

If you’ve never seen the Biltmore Estate, its quite an amazing sight. Built in 1895 by the Vanderbilt family, the Biltmore Estate houses thousands of original furnishings, and features comforts and technologies that were virtually unknown during that time. For example, the entire Estate has electric lighting, and the main house, with several hundred rooms, boasts an intercom system and electric elevators.

The original Estate covered more than 120,000 acres, and is now pared down to 8,000. The Land Rover Experience Driving School covers more than 20 acres of the Estate, and was professionally designed by the Land Rover Experience team, led by Instructor Greg Nicholas. Gregs team of highly trained instructors not only show you how to get down off-road in Land Rovers, but how to respect the environment by honoring “Tread Lightly” principles.

There are several school options with the Land Rover Experience Driving School. You can choose “Lessons,” for beginners; “Trails” for those with off-road experience; and “Full-Day Adventure; with either hard-core off-roading or scenic off-roading. Times run from a one-hour excursion to the six-hour full day adventure. Costs are also extremely reasonable, with the one-hour experience costing $200 per vehicle (with up to three drivers), and the full day Adventure costing $800 (which includes lunch and driving for up to three drivers).

Before starting the course, Greg walked us around a trio of Land Rovers – 2007 Range Rover, Range Rover Sport, and LR3. It was then time to truly go to school, as Greg discussed the terminology we would need to understand in the off-road environment. We discussed approach, departure and breakover angles, and how they relate to the vehicle’s off-road dynamics. We discussed left-foot braking, which saves time from switching from brake to accelerator pedal in a crucial situation. Greg and his instructors covered all the basics, including gear selection, weight transfer and balance, and line choice.

We also talked about the technology built into all Land Rover products that make the vaunted British brand legendary in jungles and deserts around the world. Some of the advanced technology includes a terrain response system, Hill Descent Control and a fully independent air suspension. They all work together to help you get around off-road without a hitch.

Out on the course, we encountered steep inclines and declines, side turns that make you wonder how the vehicles stay upright, and tons and tons of mud! It is truly amazing to see what true SUVs can do off-road, and Land Rover builds some of the worlds best for both on and off road situations. After a tasty catered lunch on the trail, we finished the day with a true understanding of what good instruction can show about the vehicles capabilities, and how taking care of the trails means someone can come behind you and do the same thing.

For more on the Land Rover Experience Driving Schools, go to www.landroverusa.com/drivingschools. For more on the Biltmore Estate, visit www.biltmore.com

Big Boys and Tough Toys – The Nissan Truck Off-Road Experience

maxfarrow — Fri, 31 Mar 2006 18:49:02 +0000

We’ve just returned from the town of Bridgeport Texas, about 90 minutes outside of Dallas, and future home of the Bridgeport Recreational Park. The 900 acres set aside for the park include serene trails through the scrub brush and rocky hills that make up the area’s terrain-a serenity we promptly quashed in a day of thrashing Nissan’s best off-road offerings throughout the landscape.

Nissan’s truck and SUV lines are some of the toughest, least-sissified vehicles out there, especially in this era of “crossovers” and trucks designed specifically for soccer-moms. We took Titans over towering hills, forced Frontiers through fresh mud, and drove Xterras down extremely steep slopes, all in an effort to find out just how capable these Nissans really are in this type of terrain.

In other words, we played with trucks in the mud.

Far as the eye can see standing in the center of the future Bridgeport Recreational Park, the rough ground is littered with boulders and covered with a bright orange mud. Undulating gracelessly to the horizon, one of our colleagues commented that there are probably more hills, with higher elevation, here than in pretty much anywhere else in Texas. Recent rains had made dry gullies into streams to be forded and deep depressions into small lakes to be splashed through. It honestly looked pretty daunting-and there wasn’t a paved road in sight.

The Nissan team on hand had spent the last several weeks on-site, laying out a looped course of several miles through the landscape. After an initial run with one of the trail’s topographers acting as a guide, the journalists present were invited to hop into each of the vehicles Nissan had carted along and run the trails themselves. We were asked to try out both four-wheel-drive High and Low settings at different spots, to use the locking rear differentials at some particularly perilous points, and to play with the electronic toys like Hill descent Control that some of the smaller trucks sported. The menu for the day included several Titan trucks, a few Xterra SUVs, and a number of Frontier pickups-a few of which sported a factory package of off-road upgrades by NISMO, Nissan’s in-house performance arm.

NISMO, which stands for NISan MOtorsports, is a recent apparition in the United States aftermarket scene, dedicated to building bolt-on parts with bulletproof reliability and seamless integration with stock vehicles. NISMO aftermarket parts are offered in three stages of tune; S-Tune for street vehicles, with 100 percent legality and a full warrantee; R-Tune for more race-oriented vehicles, which are often designated as off-road only; and Legacy parts for older Nissan vehicles like the 300Z and 240SX that still command a wide enthusiast following. Bob Speights, from NISMO development, showed off a smattering of the NISMO offerings, and on inspection they prove to be tough, well-designed, and of much higher quality than most typical add-on bits. “NISMO parts are not about eye-candy,” says Speights-another refreshing fact in this world of stick-on horsepower and lighted windshield-wiper nozzles. Nissan dealerships are the official NISMO vendors, and can also install the parts for you, if desired. Furthermore, NISMO collaborates with Nissan’s Product Development engineers to create performance-oriented option packages, such as we’ve seen with the NISMO 350Z, and on the NISMO Frontier we tested here.

We’ll delve into the performance of each specific truck in another review, but suffice it to say that every example on had performed impressively. They forded deep water with ease, thanks to high ground clearance, and climbed the steepest, rockiest hills we’ve ever seen, thanks to class-leading approach and departure angles. Coming down hard onto rocks and earth presented no problem for the Nissans’ running gear; the liberal use of skid plates protecting the vulnerable bits, and an overall design that tucks such components up and under the frame kept the dirty party unharmed. Essentially, the Titan, Xterra and Frontier all felt sure-footed and competent, even traversing parts of the trails we wouldn’t want to walk over. In fact, some of the hills we took these trucks up and down were so steep we almost expected to flip end over end on our way down-but the Nissans themselves seemed to relish the experience.

It is truly amazing what these trucks can do.

This may go a long way towards explaining Nissan’s recent domination of the Championship Off-Road Racing (CORR) series. In that last year’s standings, Nissan drivers scored six wins, two second-place showings, and took third-place honors three times-in 18 events. Showcasing their superiority, Nissan had brought along two of their sponsored drivers and an examples of Titan and Frontier CORR race trucks.

Chad Hord’s Pro-Light mount is a fiberglass Frontier, built on a spec chassis but featuring a Nissan four-banger that makes 305 horsepower from a stock block and cylinder head. He says he’s regularly running the motor at 8-9,000 r.p.m. through the races-and has yet to experience one engine failure.

In the Pro-4 class, 14-year Nissan veteran Art Schmitt pilots a Titan. His ride also runs on a stock Nissan block; this the V8 configuration, making more than twice the power of the Pro-Light truck-750hp. The Titan is the official truck of CORR racing (which is broadcast regularly on Speed Channel; races take place in California, Michigan, and Wisconsin).

Both drivers thrilled the assembled crowd with a few jumps over a rock-and-dirt mound set up by the “headquarters” tent. Firing these things up is itself a revelation; both the four and the eight can be heard miles away. It was the more-powerful Titan that made the most spectacular jumps; catching what seemed like 15 feet of air and flying for several car lengths. Once the show was over, the grins of the assembled spectators were overmatched only by those on the driver’s faces.

Now, we’ve been on other off-road expeditions, with other brands debuting some other capable four-wheelers. None of those, however, have ever matched the Bridgeport terrain for sheer challenge. A comfort to the “real-man” contingent of guys who cringe at “all-wheel-drive sport-wagons,” we can honestly report that Nissan builds some of the toughest trucks out there-and what’s more, they don’t mind getting them dirty.

What fun!

Porsche Cayenne Driving Experience

Steve — Thu, 20 Mar 2003 20:40:46 +0000

Before a new model vehicle ever hits the show room floor, many key events have to take place – many of which happen behind the scenes and completely unbeknownst to the consumer. Ever wondered why your salesperson knows so much about how the vehicle you’re interested in handles rocky terrain? Ever been curious as to how your salesperson knows what it’s like to drive a vehicle like the one you’re interested in at speeds in excess of 100mph?

With Porsche’s launch of the 2003 Cayenne, consumers are certain to ask all kinds of questions. Porsche Cars North America (PCNA) wanted to make certain their sales staff could answer as many questions as possible, so they set-up a special “Drivers Experience” event for dealership personnel to attend.

Held at the recently completed and ultra-modern Barber Motorsports Park, located just outside of Birmingham, Alabama, PCNA invited dealership staff from around the nation to attend a two-day event in which the Cayenne’s capabilities were showcased. We were fortunate to catch up with Howard Winslow, sales manager from Porsche of Arlington, and spent some time talking with him about the Porsche Cayenne Driving Experience.

“Off-road, the Cayenne is as capable as any sports utility vehicle, including long time off-road legends like Land Rover,” says Winslow, “And on the track, well, it’s nearly as capable as any car, including the 911.”

Howard spent approximately two days at the Barber Motorsports Park putting the Cayenne through its paces, learning the ins and outs of the vehicle, while following road racing legend, Hurley Haywood around the 2.3 mile FIA/FIM-approved racetrack.

“We’d be behind Hurley, who was in a 911, and they’d tell us to just follow him around the course – same speed, same lines, same braking. It was amazing to drive a 5,000lb Cayenne at 3,200lb 911 speeds. It was absolutely mind boggling, the truck just followed him wherever he went.”

According to Winslow, the Cayenne doesn’t give the driver any indication of its massive size while operating at speed. He commented that the vehicle was very nimble, cornered very flat, and was a great vehicle on the track. He commented that the only time he was reminded he was driving a “truck” was when he’d hit the accelerator. “The turbo is fast – way fast, but the S, while it’s no slouch, reminds you that you’re driving a truck,” he commented.

But the Barber Motorsports Park isn’t all about road coursing – there are two off-road tracks, located in the woods within the complex. “It was amazing that it could do what it could off-road,” says Winslow, while recalling his woodland experiences with the Cayenne. “I had to ask the guys who had more experience with vehicles in an off-road environment if there was anything comparable to the Cayenne off-road. They said it was as capable as anything from Land Rover, which to me, says quite a bit, given Land Rover’s history.”

“There were things that looked impossible to me, but you were sitting behind the wheel and the instructor said ‘do it’, and you did it and the Cayenne did the task without any trouble.” According to Winslow, “The object of off-roading is to go as slow as possible and as fast as necessary – we’d put it in ‘reduction gear’ while going downhill; and we’re talking about some steep grades- it would just creep down the hill, completely stable and steady. No need to put your foot on the brake – it was able to handle the situation perfectly.”

I was excited to hear more about the Turbo Cayenne, so I asked Howard about the motor and the driving experience as it related to the Turbo. “There’s zero turbo lag – power is precise and spot on. But other than the difference in acceleration, which is significant, there’s no difference between the S-model and the Turbo. None.”

Howard had nothing but positive comments for PCNA and their hospitality. “They put us in a great hotel – at least a 4-star hotel, and the food was amazing. Porsche always does a great job when it comes to functions like this – it’s a real pleasure to attend Porsche events.”

He indicated that there were approximately 40 dealership personnel (from various dealerships) in attendance at his session. He estimated that Porsche would be conducting the Cayenne Driving Experience for nearly two-months – which is quite amazing. Even more amazing is the fact that just about every person in a Porsche dealership is invited to attend.

“We had sales people, technicians, parts staff, service writers, just about everyone from the dealership was able to attend the training. Porsche is always real good about inviting everyone to new model trainings.”

By the time you read this article, Cayenne’s should be making their debut at dealerships around the nation. Porsche has set March 15th as the official launch date for demo vehicles to be available, and Porsche of Arlington is planning an introduction party at their dealership on March 14. Howard expects to have a few hundred people on hand for the party.

Current allocations for Porsche of Arlington sets the number of Cayenne’s available at approximately 10 cars per month, and Howard expects the first batch of Cayenne’s to arrive around the first week of April. I’d highly recommend that if you’re interested in the Cayenne that you give Howard a call – he’s very much a Porsche enthusiast, and with his recent on and off-road experiences, he’s well versed in “pepper speak”.

For more information:
Howard Winslow
Sales Manager
Porsche of Arlington, Virginia

email: howardw@porscheofarlington.com

(703) 684-6660
http://www.porscheofarlington.com