A couple of weeks ago Jaguar Land Rover Canada put together an even called the “Jaguar Land Rover Experience Tour”, which consisted of track time with Jaguar cars and an off-road course for Land Rover vehicles. We were invited to the event, which was a lot of fun, and I would like to thank Aleksandra Bulat for organizing the event and Dean Rideout from MCL Motor Cars.
The event took place in Mission, BC, where the Mission Raceway was used for driving Jaguar cars and an off-road course was specially built for the Land Rovers. The part I was most excited about was the race track and driving the 500+ HP Jaguar cars. They brought the Jaguar XJL, XKR-S, and XFR and on the other side were the Land Rover Range Rovers, Range Rover Sport, LR4, and the newest addition to the family, the Evoque.
As big of a racing/race car fan I am, I’ve actually never set foot on a racetrack, I’ve driven plenty of fast cars on the street though, I also wasn’t familiar with the track layout at Mission Raceway so I was pretty nervous about driving these expensive cars fast and crashing them. And most importantly I didn’t want to be known as “that guy that crashed”.
The “Jaguar Experience” started with a couple of laps around the track in the Jaguar XFR, with the instructor driving. I did a review on this car last year and knew it was very fast with 510 horsepower but I was shocked at the things it could do on the track, of course with the instructor driving. My brain was having a hard time accepting the speeds at which this big cat was going through the corners with street tires. I drove the next two laps and I had no clue where to brake, turn, and start accelerating. At least I was fast in the straight parts, but even in the corners it felt pretty nimble.
Up next was the beast, Jaguar XKR-S with 550 horsepower, that thing is super-fast and sounds amazing, it sounds like a Spitfire plane that’s about to shoot you out of the sky. Unfortunately, as I left the pit lane, it started to rain. The track is pretty narrow and with the rain it became very slippery, so I had to drive like my grandma for the rest of the racetrack part of the event. On to the off-road course we go…
I wasn’t really looking forward to the second part of the event but boy was I pleasantly surprised by the amount of fun it was and by the end of the day, I couldn’t wipe the smile off my face. I already know Land Rover vehicles are extremely capable on rough terrain, I’ve written quite a few posts on the Defender, one of my favorite off-roaders. What surprised me most was the Range Rover Evoque and how capable it was.
Before this event, I thought the Evoque was just another cross-over vehicle that has an all-wheel drive system but was I ever wrong. This little luxury Ute is pretty capable and as I went through the course, I was expecting to flip it over on many occasions. I drove it sideways on steep wet grassy hills with street tires without any problems. It went through mud, deep-ish water, and some very rough roads like a champ (see pictures). It can’t go everywhere where a Land Rover would go but for an average consumer that needs to go to a cabin way out in the woods or through a major snow fall, this vehicle is perfect and it drives like a car on asphalt, where 99% of owners will use it 99% of the time. We will do a full test drive on the Evoque soon.
The bigger Land Rovers performed just like I had expected, I have seen lots of videos of these vehicles going through off-road courses but never realized how much fun it was going at speeds of less than 5 mph. Some of the obstacles looked impossible to drive over and I was holding onto the steering wheel for dear life, but I and the Land Rovers survived.
Overall the Jaguar Land Rover Experience Tour was a lot of fun, it gave me an opportunity to do something I’ve never done before and it had my adrenaline pumping. The cars and SUVs did what they were meant to do, most people don’t get to use their vehicles to their full potential and I’d suggest you take your Jaguar car to a track and take your Land Rover off-roading at least once; it’ll be a lot of fun.
