Freelander reborn (in)credibly in 2026

On a pleasantly warm late spring night in Chery’s home town of Wuhu, hundreds of the world’s media – including Car Design News – were invited along to the large and impressive Museum of the China Sculpture Institute to see the new Freelander brand revealed and its first production model the Freelander 8 unveiled. The scale of the event certainly matched Chery’s ambition which has plans to launch six models inside five years with three major international versions in left and right-hand drive and 90 markets targets, including the European Union.

The Freelander has a strong history and name, belonging to a softer-surfaced more passenger car style of compact SUV which Land Rover launched in 1997. It quickly become Europe’s top-selling 4x4 and was the first in the world to offer the patented hill descent control feature now commonplace across the off-road segment. 

After two generations the model was discontinued in 2015, as other models including the Range Rover Evoque became more popular, but a letter of intent between JLR and its Chinese partner Chery in June 2024 announced the revival of Freelander name – and this time as a standalone brand.

Fast-forward to early 2026 and a teaser image of the Concept 97 was shown, which was met with more than a little scepticism in many jaded journalist circles, partly given the proliferation of SUVs and 4x4s of all shapes and sizes by almost every brand in the world by the 2020s, and in a way that was far from the case back in 1997. 

The most direct question was basically: does the world really need another 4x4 brand? And especially one possibly reinterpreted inauthentically without properly understanding the model’s British history.

The refreshing news is that on the brand’s global launch night on Saturday 25th April, both the Concept 97 colourfully lit up at the Wuhu museum’s entrance and the Freelander 8 – the brand’s first production model and mid-to-large SUV – looked as impressive as the venue. Mid-to-large means it is five metres long and has three rows of seats. There was even a full-size model of the next smaller Freelander production car to come, in a private ante room where press cameras weren’t allowed to snap, but which nonetheless showed the consistency of the design direction of travel.

The ‘Night of Freelander’ presentation, hosted by the highly enthusiastic Freelander International CEO Lucia Mao, quickly explained the history ‘since 1997’ and that a very significant Land Rover and Range Rover designer, Phil Simmons, was also behind the new brand’s design relaunch. That continuity was a good start, although it was a shame that Simmons wasn’t available on the night to explain more.

Still, Mao made a good job of elaborating on the original design brief – does it feel free? – and then listing the key ingredients from the old Freelander generations that were considered for the new brand, including its ‘castle-style' body, interlocking headlight elements (from the Mk2) and triangular rear side windows, dual peak bonnet and high command driving position.

The inside of the six-seater wasn’t available to sit in or be viewed properly – so much so that the presentation slide showing the cabin was deliberately blurred – as that’s for another day. But the few pictures we were able to take through the window revealed a smart and restrained interior with a large central screen and a surround view driver display at the base of windscreen stretching from A-pillar to A-pillar. 

Fully reclinable ‘zero gravity’ seating was also mentioned as a feature and makes sense for this electrified model to allow owners to have a kip while recharging (the Freelander 8 is set to offer full-electric, range extender and also plug-in hybrid versions).

Mao continued to explain that the Freelander cabin should be like an “emotional home” attracting “contemporary explorers” with a colour and trim palette representing a “modern echo” of the Freelander’s original colour ways and materials. Touting the Freelander as a “British Premium Intelligent All-Terrain Brand”, key new technologies on board include nine switchable terrain modes, dual-chamber air suspension and Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8295P chip, able to power up to eight displays at once in an ultra-responsive and smooth manner.

A massive $1.5bn has been invested in the Chery Jaguar Land Rover Changshu manufacturing facility in China, in which robots galore can now streamline processes and create vehicles with a lower 0.35 tons per unit carbon output.

The Freelander’s first market will be the Middle East with 1100 retail ’touch points’ due to roll out worldwide after that, but at the time of writing, no official date was set for that showroom launch. As a physical and metaphorical statement of genuine production-ready intent though, it’s much more impressive than I expected.

Quite how the model-turned-marque will complement – or compete with – existing JLR products and indeed other Chery brand off-road models in markets where some or all will be on sale is not yet clear, but with the genuine pedigree of its back story Freelander is certainly a more credible off-road brand than many of the numerous new names we saw at the 2026 Beijing Auto China show and beyond.

Pricing will logically be well above Chery’s adventurous off-rood capable Jaecoo models – given Freelander’s ‘British premium’ billing – but probably well under current equivalent size Land Rover and Range Rover models. Sitting in and driving the product – on and off-road – with final specifications and costs, should reveal its global chances of success. But this feels like a good start.