Like many fathers, I’ve often imagined taking my son out for his first drive. The road we’ll take, the weighty things I’ll say, the feeling I’ll get knowing this is his ticket to freedom. I just never imagined he’d be 12.

Nor that we’d be in a Range Rover Evoque. My first drive was in a friend’s clapped-out Mini, and yet here we are: me in the back, and my son, in the prime of his tweenage years, breaking his duck in the driving seat of a luxury all-terrain vehicle. Under his foot, hundreds of brake horsepower. In my stomach, butterflies.

This is my doing, of course. Willingly, I’ve brought him to the Land Rover Experience in Devon to do its Young Off-Roader course. He is pumped. Something about wobbly legs. I know the feeling, son.

Also in the car and sitting alongside my boy is the much less excitable Steve, or Minty as he assures us he’s better known. Minty is ex-RAF and has been instructing first-time off-roaders for 16 years. In impressively calm tones, he explains what’s about to happen and reassures my son that he will be fine. I almost believe him.

What is about to happen is that we’re going to head over a field, past some sheep, through a trough that’s knee-deep in water, and on into a densely wooded area where we’ll find a narrow, undulating and at times precipitous track. My son, as I have to remind myself, will be driving. This is not an Xbox simulation.

Back-up is Minty’s lone brake pedal, although that doesn’t seem quite enough to mitigate for disasters yet to unfold. An ejector seat, perhaps? A sick bag?

Up the field we go, past the sheep and into the trough. Minty has my son hanging on his every word. The speedo stays below 15mph and the boy quickly grasps the basics, without ever grasping the steering wheel too tight. I’m quietly impressed.

Minty guides us into the trees and onto the winding dirt track. It’s horribly tight and uneven, but even rolling about in the back, there’s something assured about my son’s driving. Wade through more brown water, up a vertiginous muddy slope, down another. These are conditions most drivers will never experience. But my boy, high on youth, doesn’t appear to break a sweat. He’s got a gift!

Or it could be that he’s in a prodigiously clever car. The Evoque is the baby in Range Rover’s fleet and has never quite escaped its association with the housewives of Essex. But peel away the sticky leopard-print veneer of reality TV, and underneath remains an extraordinarily capable vehicle.

Among its standard features is “hill descent control”, a system found across Land Rover’s range, right up to the astonishing Defender, that puts the car’s unfeasibly large brain in charge on a downhill so that it inches forwards (or backwards) at controlled speeds as slow as 2mph.

Minty shows us how to activate it, encouraging my son to press the buttons on the glossy centre console touchscreen and make the adjustments himself, before giving him permission to take his feet off the pedals and allow the car to edge forwards autonomously down a 30-degree incline. I suppose it must be a sign of how much confidence I now have in instructor, vehicle and son that with no one touching the pedals, this feels entirely comfortable. Yes, a wheel spins occasionally as it looks for grip on loose shingle, but the car is smart enough to cope, equalising power, braking and suspension across all four wheels so that we stay in balance and on track.

Similarly, we shift between Land Rover’s “terrain response system” settings, selecting “grass-gravel-snow” to slalom between the sheep, and then “mud-ruts” once we’re under the canopy. There’s a “sand” option, too, and if we really want to surrender to the car, there’s an “auto” setting that’ll figure out the driving surface for us. All this all-terrain tech in a car that starts at £32,620. Bloody hell, it’s impressive.

As the boy parks up, Minty reveals that not every kid makes the woods, and that he hasn’t touched his pedal at any point during our 45-minute outing. I’m proud. I’m also worried. ‘Think you know how to drive now?’ I find myself asking my son. He nods. ‘You don’t.’

At least, I think he doesn’t. By the time he’s 17, cars will be so smart, perhaps the DVLA will issue licences to anyone who can find a start/stop button. I hope not. For all the Evoque was working hard for this 12-year-old driving debutant, he felt in control, connected to the machine. And you should have seen the smile that put on his face.

To book a Land Rover Experience, visit landrover.co.uk. Young Off-Roader courses for11-17-year-olds cost £150 and last one hour