For the past 30 years, we’ve been inundated with waves of retro cars big and small. From the Airflow-aping Chrysler PT Cruiser to ’60s-throwback Mustangs and Camaros, money’s been made, and heart rates have been raised by trying to bring back the past. In a way, the Freelander 8 is the latest retro-inspired car to enter existence, although it’s subtly doing something that, as far as I can tell, hasn’t been done before.
What’s a Freelander 8? Well, it’s not entirely a Land Rover, although it is the fruit of a joint venture with Chinese automaker Chery. What we have here is an enormous 6,570-pound three-row SUV running on an 800-volt architecture. With battery-electric, range-extender hybrid, and plug-in hybrid variants planned, it’s going on sale in China soon, with sales in other markets to follow. It’s an interesting move, but perhaps the most interesting part about it is its styling.
Right off the rip, the Freelander 8 draws inspiration from the original Land Rover Freelander, pulling the triangular quarter-window straight off of Solihull’s compact three-door soft-roader of the Y2K era. Look deeper, however, and you’ll see details not pulled from just any Freelander, but the 2004 model-year facelift of the original Freelander.
You can see it best in the dropped-down inner headlamp elements, although the contrasting elements in the front bumper and the chamfered elements in the rear valence. Even the tall rectangular surface the grilles sprout from is closer to the 2004 Freelander than any Land Rover in recent history, and even though that seems minor, every visual element on a modern car is intentional.
Mind you, I’m not just seeing a 2004 Freelander in the Freelander 8. In profile, there’s a huge whiff of LR3/Discovery 3 to the cladding, even if this electrified model’s strong belt line seems to draw more from the Defender than from anything else. Still, the 2000s ingredients come across strong, and that says something about where we might be headed.
In some ways, it makes a great deal of sense for the stylings of the 2000s to make a comeback. First off, there’s the general rule of 20-year cultural trend cycles. The 2000s brought with it a crop of new bands inspired by New Wave and TV shows with ’80s flashbacks or settings, but car design didn’t really adjust until later. That makes a great deal of sense given how the median new car buyer is much older than the 20-something trendsetters frequently trading on borrowed nostalgia, so it’s understandable that the ’80s throwbacks came later. While the Hyundai Ioniq 5’s folded paper-inspired design might be the most obvious sign, Ferrari now has a sort of throwback to the Testarossa, and Lamborghini produced a retro-look Aventador-based Countach several years ago.
Was ’90s nostalgia in car design a thing? Actually, sort of, yeah. The current Nissan Z and Nissan Leaf offer tail lamp treatments inspired by the 300ZX of the 1990s, the modern Ruf SCR is a reinterpretation of 964-based Ruf models, and how could we forget about the reborn Renault Twingo E-Tech? That thing’s post-Cold War optimism captured in a rose-tinted bottle.
Now it seems like we’re starting to move on to the Y2K and early 2000s era rather quickly. From another wave of electroclash headlined by acts like Fcukers and Snow Strippers to the ’04 Rich subculture decking out their heavily depreciated rides to period-correct “MTV Cribs” spec, noughties nostalgia has been bubbling under the surface for a while, waiting to erupt. Has anything leaned into it already? The GMC Hummer EV is very 2000s as a concept, but its styling isn’t a throwback. The current Rolls-Royce Phantom definitely looks a fair bit like the old one, but it’s part of a lineage and a clear evolution. As far as from-scratch early-2000s throwbacks, the new Freelander 8 is the first I’ve seen. It won’t be the last.
Nissan is working on a new XTerra, and it has a strong reintepretation of the hood surfacing on the marque’s Y2K off-roader. Motor1 Spain sat down with VW technical development boss Kai Grünitz to talk about the incoming Mk9 Volkswagen Golf, who revealed that not only is the design basically locked in, “It’s reminiscent of the Golf Mk4, which was a big step forward.”
While there’s still lots unknown about the Freelander 8, its Y2K-ish styling elements are undeniable and suggest that the next phase of retro visual tributes might be coming from a more recent past than you might expect. At a time when The Dare is trying to sound like LCD Soundsystem, which tried to sound like David Byrne, maybe this all makes perfect sense.
Top graphic image: Freelander
More than any other car I can bring to mind other than a concept car, this is the most “this car has no bumpers at all” front or rear. not the slightest one inch of projecting bulge to take a hit whatsoever. Pay for it, pick it up, and just drive it to the body shop.
So model the new one after one of the most crap cars of all time? Sounds like a plan to me, next up: We are totally going to revamp the Jag using the same format.
When I first glanced at the top shot I thought it was a reboot of the Aztek. Less fugly and reliable from LR.
We had the original Freelander, then we had the Freelander 2
Did I miss Freelanders 3 through 7 ?
It looks very Chinese.. But I guess some of their styling cues are rip offs of 2000s vehicle. So many Chinese cars sort of knockoff land rover and Mercedes of the past. Ironic to have a land rover partner to make a sort of Chinese knockoff looking vehicle.
…am I the only one seeing Gen 2 Ford Escape?
Well, Ford reintroduced styling cues from the 1965 Mustang after less than a decade
Sometimes it isn’t about trying to recall a past era of design, so much as it is trying to make a new model instantly recognizable as the successor to the earlier one
Is JLR so desperate to be
relevantoperational these days that they’re willing to produce bad Chinese rip offs of themselves?