Employees at Land Rover’s Halewood Operations on Merseyside are celebrating the production of the 100,000th Land Rover Freelander 2. The milestone vehicle has been built 17 months after Freelander 2 production started at Halewood. The 100,000th car, a Rimini Red 2.2 Diesel Auto, is now en route to a customer in the city of Surgut, located on Russia’s Central Siberian Plateau.

Thomas Klein, Operations Director at Halewood said: “The 100,000th Freelander is an important milestone for the plant – Freelander 2 helped Land Rover achieve its best ever sales year in 2007 and has won several major awards in its first 12 months in the market place. Freelander is continuing to perform well in traditional Land Rover markets such as the UK but sales in emerging areas like Russia and China are also growing rapidly so it’s entirely fitting that this car is destined for a customer in Siberia”