Freelander 1 Freelander 1, A modern classic?

An interesting article online for those interested - HERE

Interesting thanks. I'll try my classic car insurance this year and see if they buy it!! I've met several owners of F1s who have said if it was available new they would buy one for its simplicity and all round good performance. It doesn't excel at much but does everything I have asked of it. A new F1 would get my vote. This forum could easily influence the design to rid it of a few gripes.

Business opportunity!??! Buy old ones. Have a K series expert to rebuild engines. Fit all new / refurb drive train. New brakes. Cut a deal with Exmoor trim for seat coverings. Could offer respray in any colour. Sell for reasonable wages amd modest profit to allow source vehicles to be purchased. If customer was to pay deposit they could spec it. Dreaming perhaps........

andyfreelandy said:

Business opportunity!??! Buy old ones. Have a K series expert to rebuild engines. Fit all new / refurb drive train. New brakes. Cut a deal with Exmoor trim for seat coverings. Could offer respray in any colour. Sell for reasonable wages amd modest profit to allow source vehicles to be purchased. If customer was to pay deposit they could spec it. Dreaming perhaps........

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They're not RRCs - nobody would pay the money for them!

The only way you could probably make any cash would be to refurb them - and also convert them to leccy. Might get a few punters then.

Other than that, you'd could squirrel a few away in a warehouse - and cross your fingers you might make some dosh in 25 years time - but we'd be dead and the petrol will have run out or been banned.

Yup, old fossil-fuelled cars could end up being like old steam engines: a niche interest...

Our Hippos are there for us to enjoy now, which is what I intend to do

GrumpyGel said:

and also convert them to leccy

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That's definitely something I'd consider
I'd get a lot of batteries in my commercial.

Petrol will be around for a good while yet, best put away the V6 and K series ones, put it on LPG which does have a future

Top spec and low spec ideally, weirdly i find the base models can fetch a premium as they're usually the ones destroyed first.

Nice colours too..

Special editions etc etc..

RRC were worth nothing up until around 2014 i expect the same thing to happen to FL1s.

p.s. That guy's doing something wrong if he can only get 32mpg out of his TD4.
I got 33mpg out of mine, pre EGR bypass on rubbish tyres and driving to work at 80-90.
I'm currently trying it at sensible speeds on new tyres, just to see the difference. (Still haven't done the EGR though)

bukko said:

That's definitely something I'd consider
I'd get a lot of batteries in my commercial

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It's something that I've been mulling over for a while. Unfortunately I don't have the space or finance to carry out an electric conversion on a FL1 just yet. To make it worthwhile, would require a FL1 with a perfect body, which is the difficult part.
The batteries are expensive too, actually more expensive than the rest of the drive system. But a well engineered and fully functional E FL1 could be made for around £12K, on the road.

Nodge68 said:

It's something that I've been mulling over for a while. Unfortunately I don't have the space or finance to carry out an electric conversion on a FL1 just yet. To make it worthwhile, would require a FL1 with a perfect body, which is the difficult part.
The batteries are expensive too, actually more expensive than the rest of the drive system. But a well engineered and fully functional E FL1 could be made for around £12K, on the road.

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Hmm i doubt that..

I wrote to London Electric to see if it was poss to convert an early Land rover s3 and they wanted 28k just to convert it!!

Batteries motors etc..

I'd be inclined to fix LPG/CNG and be done with it which is a 1'k conversion.

Henry_b said:

Hmm i doubt that.

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I'm on about doing a DIY EV conversion. Not getting a company to do it. It's actually possible to get a working EV conversion for well under £5K, if Pb batteries are used instead of LifePO4 batteries.

Nodge68 said:

I'm on about doing a DIY EV conversion. Not getting a company to do it. It's actually possible to get a working EV conversion for well under £5K, if Pb batteries are used instead of LifePO4 batteries.

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Yeah but a dual fuel car would still be "green" cost less than a 1/3 of the price and you still get to hear the KV6..

Instead of having a FL1 that weighs as much as a small planet and handles like a moon, coz e'v's are very very very very very heavy

Henry_b said:

I'd be inclined to fix LPG/CNG and be done with it which is a 1'k conversion.

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Those won't work if fossil fuels are stopped.

Nodge68 said:

Those won't work if fossil fuels are stopped.

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https://www.drivelpg.co.uk/news/bri...est-achievements-of-autogas-during-last-year/

https://www.drivelpg.co.uk/news/lpg-key-to-delivering-road-to-zero-strategy/

https://www.drivelpg.co.uk/news/uk-...ts-retrofitting-of-vans-and-taxis-to-autogas/

Nope not for a long while yet..

The government has pledged to increase duty on LPG as a road fuel by only one pence a year towards petrol duty for the foreseeable future. At this rate, will take over 50 years for LPG prices to increase to those of petrol and diesel.This is because the government sees both petrol and diesel as environmentally unfriendly (a great excuse to tax you heavily on it). There is no case for this claim with clean burning LPG, which is a much more environmentally friendly fuel, hence less duty.

There are now thousands of places where you can refuel with LPG alongside the usual petrol and diesel pumps, ranging from motorway services, petrol stations, supermarket forecourts, to dedicated (and even cheaper) gas suppliers. The number of refueling points is growing rapidly all the time. You should have no problem finding convenient places to refuel.


There is also a new ethanol rich fuel hitting the forecorts in 2020.

Petrol car sales have never been better according to Autocar with 63% of all vehiles sold being on pez less on diesel and 12% hybrid and EV.

Henry_b said:

Hmm i doubt that..

I wrote to London Electric to see if it was poss to convert an early Land rover s3 and they wanted 28k just to convert it!!

Batteries motors etc..

I'd be inclined to fix LPG/CNG and be done with it which is a 1'k conversion.

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LPG is a cheaper conversion for sure, but suggestion of going EV wasn't to improve economy - it was as a way of selling rebuilt cars at a price to make it worthwhile.

There are lots of places to purchase the EV bits from these days and prices have come down considerably. Really depends on what sort of power and range you want out of it, as well as the brand names you want on the bits, as to how much it will cost.

GrumpyGel said:

LPG is a cheaper conversion for sure, but suggestion of going EV wasn't to improve economy - it was as a way of selling rebuilt cars at a price to make it worthwhile.

There are lots of places to purchase the EV bits from these days and prices have come down considerably. Really depends on what sort of power and range you want out of it, as well as the brand names you want on the bits, as to how much it will cost.

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You get to keep the proper engine and value..

Plus..

Range would be an issue if you planned on going anywhere, charge times etc..

And the fact that the conversion would be cost prohibative..

where do you put the batteries?


An LPG kit can be purchased for £400 and fitted yourself, then inspected. running up to around £700..

compared to £5000 plus for an EV conversion..

Olus the weight and handling will be ruined.

Henry_b said:

Yeah but a dual fuel car would still be "green" cost less than a 1/3 of the price and you still get to hear the KV6

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That's good to know. I know little about LPG vehicles, other than LPG is cheaper per litre, but also less energy dense than patrol.

Henry_b said:

Instead of having a FL1 that weighs as much as a small planet and handles like a moon, coz e'v's are very very very very very heavy

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There's nothing to say an electric FL1 will weigh vast amounts more than a fuel powered one. The gearbox is retained, but the engine, fuel tank and exhaust system are all removed. The electric motor and controller will weigh less then a full tank of fuel. So this leaves the vehicle about 150Kgs lighter as the engine isn't needed.
This goes a long way to offsetting the weight of the batteries. If off the shelf 12Volt, 100Ah LifePO4 batteries are used, then 12 of them weigh just a bit more than the removed engine. These 12 batteries contain about 14Kwh of energy, which will get the reasonably light (By modern standards) FL1 a reasonable distance, before recharging is needed.

A lot of the weight in a modern car is the safety stuff, which the old FL1 simply doesn't have.

Henry_b said:

You get to keep the proper engine and value..

Plus..

Range would be an issue if you planned on going anywhere, charge times etc..

And the fact that the conversion would be cost prohibative..

where do you put the batteries?


An LPG kit can be purchased for £400 and fitted yourself, then inspected. running up to around £700..

compared to £5000 plus for an EV conversion..

Olus the weight and handling will be ruined.

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Once again, no need to keep it 'proper'.

The suggestions was to set up taking tired Freelanders and completely refurbishing/reconditioning them and selling them at a profit... but nobody would pay that much money for a F1, they're not 70's RRCs or Jag XK120s. You might be able to sell them as EVs though (probably not - but that's different to definitely not).

There's plenty of places to stick batteries in a Freelander - a load could go up front for a kick off as its a big under bonnet area (which would be all-but empty). Then there's underneath between the chassis rails. That's before you start to come in the cabin - even there, the 'fishtank' which is good for a few batteries and is external to the cabin and other bits and pieces. Assuming its going to be 2WD, you'd have options for driving front or back wheels, so the motor doesn't necessarily have to go up front - the easiest option, with a thin motor, would be to mount it in the middle of the car where the VCU is (would need stronger mounts mind) to drive back axle.

Nodge68 said:

That's good to know. I know little about LPG vehicles, other than LPG is cheaper per litre, but also less energy dense than patrol.


There's nothing to say an electric FL1 will weigh vast amounts more than a fuel powered one. The gearbox is retained, but the engine, fuel tank and exhaust system are all removed. The electric motor and controller will weigh less then a full tank of fuel. So this leaves the vehicle about 150Kgs lighter as the engine isn't needed.
This goes a long way to offsetting the weight of the batteries. If off the shelf 12Volt, 100Ah LifePO4 batteries are used, then 12 of them weigh just a bit more than the removed engine. These 12 batteries contain about 14Kwh of energy, which will get the reasonably light (By modern standards) FL1 a reasonable distance, before recharging is needed.

A lot of the weight in a modern car is the safety stuff, which the old FL1 simply doesn't have.

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If a modern audi E-tron and Tesla get 320mi - 400mi from their extensively tested and lets face it expensive batteries, how far would cheap off the shelf batteries get you?
Jaguars I pace gets 298mi etc ete
Why does a Tesla weigh more than my P38?

Why is every EV heavier than its ICE counterpart?

Lots of questions, it wouldn't be that simple and tbh with 37million cars sold last year and 1.2 mil being EV AND hybrid an the maj sold in china i doubt you'd need to rush out to convert..

As i said LPG is less than 1/3 of the conversion price, will gets you further, and the refil time isn't more than 2 minutes.

GrumpyGel said:

Once again, no need to keep it 'proper'.

The suggestions was to set up taking tired Freelanders and completely refurbishing/reconditioning them and selling them at a profit... but nobody would pay that much money for a F1, they're not 70's RRCs or Jag XK120s. You might be able to sell them as EVs though (probably not - but that's different to definitely not).

There's plenty of places to stick batteries in a Freelander - a load could go up front for a kick off as its a big under bonnet area (which would be all-but empty). Then there's underneath between the chassis rails. That's before you start to come in the cabin - even there, the 'fishtank' which is good for a few batteries and is external to the cabin and other bits and pieces. Assuming its going to be 2WD, you'd have options for driving front or back wheels, so the motor doesn't necessarily have to go up front - the easiest option, with a thin motor, would be to mount it in the middle of the car where the VCU is (would need stronger mounts mind) to drive back axle.

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But why?

A tank and some injectors would be less hassle and cheaper, less time to refuel and you go further.