Land Rover Freelander

The Land Rover Freelander is a compact SUV made by the British company Land Rover; currently a subsidiary of Tata Motors.

Freelander: The first generation

The Freelander, wholly designed by the Rover Group, was born after market research in the late 1980s suggested that a market for compact off-roaders was likely to develop. In the early 1990s Rover Group had a very restricted product development budget and looked for a partner to develop the Freelander project, which was codenamed CB40 (after Canley Building 40, where the concept was initially developed). Rover's formal partner Honda also declined (although the very similar Honda CR-V appeared in 1997).[citation needed]

Rover decided to go it alone with the CB40, which meant using parts from a limited parts bin, as it had done with the MGF roadster. Although BMW took over Rover Group in 1994, they did not get heavily involved in the development of the Freelander. The car was launched in 1997. The car became Europe's best-selling four-wheel drive model and remaining so until 2002.[citation needed] The last Freelanders in North America were sold as 2005 models.