Ok, so now here's a second video where a late-model Discovery gets more than a few helping hands from a recovery crew to surmount a reasonably modest task. I realize it's sort of just a gag, part of Jeremy's schtick and everything, but doesn't the recovery-crew in this video and the crew of rock-stackers and road-builders in the Baboon's pass video basically reveal the vehicle's deep lack of competency in the essential quality of a real 4x4, which is that it grants the freedom of relatively independent travel? I mean, sort of what I get from these videos is that in order to use this vehicle off-road, I need to be sure to bring a crew of guys along whose job is to help me get it through the route. I could do that with a Ford Escape.

They guy in Baboon's pass video, he looks pretty harried near the end. I can only imagine if he had to do all the road-building himself. And in this video, a couple of winch pulls through the heather that could probably have been avoided with better driving weren't too bad, but had Jeremy done the recovery work himself, I think the result would have put quite a ***** in the vehicle's image of relatively effortless, luxury 4x4 travel. I've done some messy, solo self-recoveries and it's definitely easier to keep the look of composure so essential to the Land Rover's contemporary image, when all the forward progress is made with the driver seated comfortably in the vehicle.

 

I'm not exactly an expert at off-roading, but climbing a muddy hill at 1MPH with the tires at full pressure...

...you're doing it wrong, Jeremy.