The genuine article, only smaller.(Land Rover's sport utility vehicle, Freelander)(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)

When a 17-year-old boy led police on an hour-and-a-half chase outside Los Angeles this past July, he may have chosen the next best thing to a tank to steal if evading the men in blue was his goal. The white SUV wouldn't quit even long after all four tires were blown out.

Said one Ventura County cop, shaking his head, ``It's a Range Rover. It's a pretty good car.''

For the sake of this story, we'll just call it a truck.

Owners of the big Land Rover can attest to the vehicle's ruggedness and durability, but how well do those traits translate into the miniature?

We got our answer within half an hour of stepping into the Freelander, Land Rover's first new introduction to the North American market since 1994. Right off the bat, the littlest Land Rover scaled a precipitously steep hill of loose igneous rock with as much ease as any other Land Rover we've been in.

Sure, it didn't hurt that Land Rover had a squadron of veteran Camel Trophy drivers directing our every turn. But despite the professional help, the Freelander nonetheless had to climb those hills itself.

First introduced in Europe in 1997, the Freelander isn't a traditional body-on-frame Land Rover-the mini-ute is Land Rover's first unibody