2013 Range Rover Sport hybrid ‘The Silk Trail Expedition’
Chassis number: SALGA2LFOEA122097
Registration number: VX13 HJV
Engine type: 3.0 litre Diesel Hybrid
Gearbox type: 8 Speed Manual
Vehicle spec:
This vehicle is Range Rover Sport hybrid Prototype 2 and was one of three that took part in the Silk Trail 2013 Expedition, which was designed to demonstrate that Land Rover’s first hybrid vehicles were just as capable as their pure ICE predecessors.
JLR’s PR team presented the expedition as the Sport hybrid’s final extreme engineering sign-off test, and the three Sports drove 10,472 miles from Solihull, the home of Land Rover, to Mumbai, the home of Jaguar Land Rover’s owners, TATA. They drove through 13 countries: France, Belgium, Germany, Poland, Ukraine, Russia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, China (including Tibet), Nepal and India.
The Sports were driven by teams of Land Rover development engineers and specially invited media from 10 countries in Europe and other nations along the route. Three Discovery support vehicles supported the convoy.
For much of this distance the expedition followed the legendary Silk Road trading routes that first connected Asia with Europe more than 2,500 years ago. Overnight halts were made in hotels, hostels and tents at many of the same staging posts visited all those years ago by Silk Road merchants, missionaries and mercenaries.
