THE Land Rover Freelander is now the top selling off-road vehicle in Europe.

Launched in European markets during last year, the Solihull-built Freelander is already outselling its nearest competitor by more than 40 per cent.

Land Rover's Freelander and all-new Discovery also currently occupy the top two spots in the UK off-road 4x4 market.

In the top slot, the Freelander has, so far this year, sold more than double its nearest competitor, while the Discovery, the next highest selling 4x4, sold just under a third more than its nearest competitor.

Sales in the UK of Land Rover's other 4x4 vehicles - the utility Defender and the luxurious Range Rover, are positioned fifth and eighth respectively.

Peter Kinnaird, the Land Rover UK managing director, said: "This is an amazing performance considering that Freelander only started selling in volume at the beginning of last year with both the revised Defender Td5 and the new Discovery at the beginning of this year.

In the first quarter of 1999, Freelander took 28 per cent share of the light 4x4 UK market sector, up from 23 per cent in 1998.

During the same period the Discovery took 35 per cent of the large leisure 4x4 market, up from 32 per cent in 1998. The Defender took a healthy 40 per cent of utility 4x4 sales.

Story date: Wednesday 19 May

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.