Land Rover G4 Challenge in Mongolia

Our Defender 110s - 4200 pounds apiece, plus people and gear - pack Land Rover's soldierly 2.4-liter four-cylinder turbo-diesel engine producing 120 hp and 265 lb-ft of torque. Fast? Not so much. In the driver's seat, lose the latte and hang up the phone: you're going to need both hands. A six-speed manual gearbox and a manually shifted two-speed transfer case put the power down, and unlike its twenty-first-century siblings, the Defender has no cute Terrain Response rotary knob on the center console, with pictograms for rocks and mud and sand and snow. The only thing responding to terrain here is (hopefully) the driver. Without laboring the point too much, the best analogy for this rolling anachronism is the ancient-but-still-made Leica MP range-finder camera, a mechanical wonder that can take perfect pictures without any sort of electronic aid or convenience feature - no auto-exposure, no auto-focus, no auto-anything. In an expert's hands, it is mythically good at its job; in an amateur's, it's a brick. If Grampa Defender has a rightful heir, it's the Discovery 3 (known as the LR3 in the States). Sure, it's suitably swanked out with GPS navigation, a Harman Kardon audio system, and air bags, but that's just Clark Kent's suit and glasses. The Disco was all superhero when the going got tough in the Gobi, following the Defender in lockstep over every rocky, rutted mile. And with due respect to Grampa's crank-window simplicity, the Discovery does have that cute Terrain Response rotary knob on the center console, and a masterful creation it is. See a muddy section ahead, turn the knob to the "mud and ruts" symbol, and drive through it. See sand, turn knob, drive. Easy as banoffee pie. The system considers the unique demands of each terrain type and tailors the actions of the throttle, transmission, center differential, air suspension, and stability control accordingly. It won't cure stupidity, but it can make a mere mortal feel like an off-road god now and then. Our two Freelander 2s (that's LR2 to you, Yank) at first seemed, well, out of their league. This is Mongolia, after all, not Santa Monica. Alongside the Defenders and the Discoverys, the G4-colored Freelanders, shorter by several inches, looked like kids dressed up as real off-roaders for Halloween. How wrong we were. Freelanders are doing everything the big boys are, just with a bit more body English. Ruts and moguls that a Defender or Discovery driver will bulldoze over without a thought, the Freelander pilot must approach with caution and careful planning. In pugilistic terms, the smallest Land Rover is a boxer, not a brawler.