Land Rover completes 50 years at Eastnor Castle proving grounds

Land Rover maker of some of the most iconic off-road vehicles in the world is celebrating 50 years of testing their SUVs in their off-road testing and development centre at the Eastnor Castle Estate in Herefordshire, UK. Tucked away in the English countryside this legendary piece of real estate is the backbone for developing each and every SUV produced by Land Rover ever produced.

The 500 acre Eastnor Castle Estate was acquired in 1961 to design and build off-roaders that could annihilate every other SUV on the planet. Fifty years later that brutal off-road course is still used to build and test every new Land Rover vehicle. The Eastnor Castle Estate has been crucial in developing not suspension setups but also modern technologies such as Anti-lock Braking System, Adjustable Air Suspension, Electronic Traction Control, Hill Decent System and Terrain Response on Land Rovers. Just so you know many of these technologies were firsts in off-road vehicles.

The latest vehicle to emerge successful on the car breaking off-road course was the Evoque. The Evoque’s new MagneRide dampers were tested extensively to establish their ability for serious off-roading.

The Eastnor Castle Estate off-road course has not just served as an off-road engineering ground. Since 1989 the car breaking off-roading course has been used as an off-road learning centre for emergency services, explorers, Humanitarian societies and more recently even the general public can learn about off-roading at the course.

Thousands of Land Rover fans and customers travel from around the world to hone their on and off-road skills with training from a team of Land Rover Experience instructors on the legendary off-road course.