More and more companies are creating these kinds of experiences for their consumers.
It was 11:50 a.m., and we’d been driving Land Rovers for nearly three hours, first over the scenic highways around Asheville, N.C., then onto the dirt roads that run through the Blue Ridge Mountains. Up ahead lay a frightening obstacle: a water-filled ditch, wide enough to swallow up the 2006 Range Rover Supercharged that I was piloting (sticker price: $92,450). The only way across was over a crude bridge, with two logs each for the left and right tires and a yawning gap in the middle.
Worse, the downward tilt of the ground made it impossible for me to see the bridge up close. I was effectively driving blind, so my instructor, Greg Nikolas, 35, hopped out of the vehicle to guide me. Nikolas is an Army veteran who has driven off-road on five continents, including Antarctica, but this would tax even his skill. Using hand signals, he coaxed me down the slope, over the logs, and up the other side. He didn't break a sweat, but I sure did.
Like exotic sports cars, Range Rovers are engineered with capabilities far beyond those of normal vehicles -- and they are priced accordingly. So just as Ferrari arranges track time for enthusiasts to pretend they are Formula One racers, Land Rover (the parent company, owned by Ford) operates schools in rugged locales so that drivers can make like off-road adventurers. Eastnor Castle, Land Rover's home in England, is the oldest such school, and another operates at a resort in Quebec. (Land Rover franchisees also run about 30 schools, mostly in Britain and South Africa.)
The North Carolina site is located on the Biltmore Estate, 8,000 magnificent acres that surround Biltmore House, a Vanderbilt mansion larger than many hotels. The school has access to more than 100 miles of trails, and courses range from one hour for one driver ($195) to all day for three drivers ($750, lunch included). Land Rover supplies the vehicles. Despite the ruggedness of the obstacles, the school's safety record is excellent. Only after persistent prodding would my instructors confess to a single incident, in which a vehicle was dented after sliding into a rock face at very slow speed.
I enrolled in the one-day course with three other journalists. Together we shared three veteran instructors and a trio of vehicles, a 2005 LR3 ($53,870), a standard 2006 Range Rover ($82,450), and the top-of-the-line Supercharged version. With the launch of the Porsche Cayenne and the redesigned Mercedes-Benz M-class, the ultraluxury SUV segment is getting crowded, but the 2006 Supercharged, arriving at dealers this summer, is a strong contender for top dog. The added zip from the supercharger boosts the Jaguar-designed V-8 from 305 to 400 horsepower, hustles the vehicle to 60 mph in 7.5 seconds vs. 8.7 seconds, and adds $10,000 to the price. Whether that's a good value depends on your income, but the supercharger makes this the company's first genuine performance vehicle.
Range Rovers come with a lifestyle attached—Wellington boots, golden retrievers, English country houses—and a unique road presence, standing more than six feet tall and weighing almost three tons. Alas, for all their character and capability, Land Rover vehicles as a group finished dead last in the latest dependability surveys by both Consumer Reports and J.D. Power & Associates. But not counting some odd noises from the stability-control mechanism, which activates in potential skid conditions, we experienced no quality problems.
The hard part of driving over two-foot log piles, it turns out, is working the brake with your left foot and the gas with your right. This reduces the amount of travel in the suspension, and the bouncing around of passengers. We churn through deeply rutted trails, slalom between trees, and slither in foot-deep mud. The Range Rover handles it all without a hiccup. On downhill descents, some so steep that I can’t see the ground in front of me, the instructor forces me to perform a completely unnatural act—keeping my foot off the brake. Range Rovers are equipped with a feature called hill-descent control that uses software to brake the wheels automatically without skidding. It works flawlessly.
Those exercises, however, are merely the appetizer for the afternoon’s main course: two laps of an obstacle course that I begin referring to as the Jaws of Death. It presents a good opportunity for driver meltdown. "People get scared, they shut down, and they can’t process information," says Nikolas. "We don’t want that."
Neither do I, but I can see how it might happen. First I drive up a high bank tilted to the right at about 35 degrees. The bank is cunningly erected near the side of a dropoff, so that when I look out the passenger side window, I worry about rolling off. That won’t happen if I steer a straight line, but it might if I panic and swerve for the summit, swinging the truck’s weight over to the downhill side.
Next I have to steer through a deep depression that causes the right front wheel of my vehicle to rise high off the ground on the way out. Suddenly I’m driving a tricycle. And then I find myself on another bank tilted to the left as steeply as a turn at the Charlotte Motor Speedway.
By the time we get back to the hotel, I feel limp but undamaged and underneath it all, quietly triumphant. I couldn’t have gotten through it without the instructors, though, who coaxed me through the tight spots without ever grabbing the wheel themselves. If I hung at the Biltmore full-time (and had Vanderbilt money), a Range Rover would be the vehicle I’d want to own. Since I live in Manhattan on a modest income, I’ll have to be content with a bus pass instead.
