Innholdsfortegnelse for October 2015 i Land Rover Monthly

FIVE MEN have been arrested following the theft of over 40 Land Rovers in East Lancashire. It is thought that the arrested men were all part of keyless ignition crimes, with Land Rovers being one of many modern cars to feature glitches with the technology in the past few months. Discovery’s, Evoques and Defenders were among those targets, with the total value of vehicles stolen thought to exceed £1m. DS Zoe Russo from Burnley CID said: “These arrests come as part of the latest stage of the investigation and I would urge anyone with any further information about the thefts, who has not come forward already, to get in touch with us. The five men have been bailed as part of the ongoing investigation.…

GRAND FINALE I LOVED the September issue of LRM and your Grand Rover story on how to find a Land Rover for £1000 or less. It served as a timely reminder that you don’t have to spend stupid amounts of money for the blinged-up Land Rovers so many people seem to want these days. It’s funny how times change. Just over 20 years ago, the most expensive model you could buy would be a top-spec Range Rover (PEA model). Today, they are virtually worthless. On the other hand, two decades ago 80in Series Is were ten a penny and people were converting them into trailers. Looking back, I wish I’d snapped them all up and stored them in a barn somewhere, because I’d now be a very rich man. Today,…

DISCOVERY SPORT TOWBAR PRICE: TBA It should take you less than an hour to install this detachable swan neck towbar to your Range Rover Discovery Sport. Available in 7-pin electrical and a 13-pin full function set, it has a maximum towing capacity of 2500kg and a nose load of 100kg. Only suitable for vehicles without a spare wheel on the rear door only. www.witter-towbars.com GRILL BASKET PRICE: £5.49 This 61 cm x 29 cm wooden-handled Grill Basket comprises of two small hinged light grills with a non-stick surface to prevent food sticking and aid cleaning. All in all, it makes the summer barbeque that little bit more convenient. www.easycamp.com BIVVI BAG PRICE: £64.95 Even the most hardcore campers dislike getting rained on in the night, which is why this waterproof…

Non, je ne regrette rien France is a wonderful country, and I have almost no regrets about moving here. On the other hand, almost no regrets is not the same as no regrets. The absence of pork pies is one example; a widespread incomprehension of the concept of customer service is another; and a distressingly widespread belief in homeopathy is a third. The finest pâté en croute is very nearly as good as the worst pork pie you have ever tasted; if a microwave breaks down under guarantee, you might as well throw it away unless you are dealing with one of the few electrical shops that actually wants return custom; and as for homeopathy, words fail me. The idea of homeopathy for Land Rovers began with two minor medical…

The world is full of Land Rovers. By their very nature they turn up in the unlikeliest of places, simply because they are the only vehicles capable of getting to many of those places. But where in the world would you go to find the very best gathered in one spot – a Land Rover hotspot, if you like? To answer that question, here’s another: What has a small village in Northampton got in common with the world’s most famous domestic appliance? Answer: Just as Hoover has become the generic name for a vacuum cleaner, Billing is synonymous throughout the world as a meeting place for Land Rovers of all shapes and sizes. This year marked the 25th anniversary of the world’s oldest Land Rover show and nearly 25,000 enthusiasts…

“Welcome to Wales” reads the sign on the A40 as I approach Monmouth. It’s as if someone has just lifted a massive weight from my shoulders. Wales is my happy place. Its endless, mostly unoccupied, green valleys are like heaven to the many hikers, mountain bikers and greenlaners that come here in search of solitude and adventure. I’m on my own in my Discovery 2 and I’ve packed light, the only things in the load area of my Disco are: mountain bike, Weber Go-Anywhere BBQ, holdall bag, SATMAP GPS and ARB swag. I like to keep things simple. Even though technically this is work, I see it as a mini-break away from the office. The plan is to take in as much fresh air as my lungs can handle. The…

AUGUST 17 – 26 France / Italy - Waypoint Tours French & Italian Alps 4x4 Guided Tour, Val d’lsere, France www.waypoint-tours.com AUGUST 18 – 21 Solent and District LRC Greenlane Trip, Wales www.sadlrc.co.uk AUGUST 22 Northern Ireland Land Rover Club Forest Run, Slemish, NI www.landrover-club.com AUGUST 22 – 23 Solent and District LRC Off-road Weekend, Wales www.sadlrc.co.uk AUGUST 22 – 23 Wye & Welsh LRC Club Event, Clyro Court, Hereford www.wwlrc.co.uk AUGUST 23 Buchan Off Road Drivers Club CCV Trial, Longside www.bordc.co.uk AUGUST 23 Dorset Land Rover Club RTV Trial http://dorsetrover.co.uk AUGUST 23 David Mitchell’s Landcraft 4x4 Snowdonia Adventure Drive Bala, North Wales Tel: 07831 258864. www.landcraft4x4.co.uk AUGUST 23 Devils Pit Pay and Play Day Barton-le-Clay, Bedfordshire www.devilspit.co.uk AUGUST 23 John Morgan 4x4 Driving 4x4 Owners Day Slindon Safari, West…

Among the most-asked questions we get asked by LRM readers is: “I keep reading about greenlaning. What is it? And can I do it in my Land Rover?” We put those questions to expert Martin Sullivan of GLASS (the Green Lanes Association) What are greenlanes? What we call greenlanes are unsurfaced roads with public access. They can be BOATs (byways open to all traffic) or UCRs (unclassified country roads), which have in most cases presumed vehicular rights and are therefore public highways. Why go greenlaning? It is an opportunity to see the countryside in a way that you never can on foot or on a bike. You can get much closer to wild animals in a car. Deer, for example, aren’t usually scared of cars, but they are of humans.…

PHANTOM OVERHEAT Q When I laid up my Defender 300Tdi in December last year everything was running perfectly and it has always been well serviced and maintained. So, I was surprised when I pressed it back into service to tow a trailer for a few miles and the temperature gauge showed it was overheating after about six miles. The needle fluctuated for a few miles and then went into the red. I did about a mile in the red, then stopped and let it completely cool down. I then checked the coolant level and it was fine. There was none of the usual evidence of a blown head gasket: no sign of water on the dipstick, no white emulsion inside the oil filler cap, and nothing from the exhaust. After…

Tell us about yourself... I’m a mechanic by trade and for the last ten years I have worked for the AA Roadside Patrol. Prior to that I worked at a garage in Dublin. How did you find this One Ten? As with most important decisions in Ireland it began with a chat over a pint of Guinness and escalated from that. Tell us more I bought the chassis, roof and tub from a guy in Donegal. It’s a 1989 One Ten County Station Wagon chassis and it was pretty rough when I bought it is an understatement. I replaced the rear crossmember and both bulkhead outriggers before sending the chassis off to be galvanised. The total cost of the parts mentioned so far was only 800 Euros. I think that…

A PAN-AMERICAN Land Rover expedition that started 55 years ago will this summer resume. The Cambridge Trans-American Expedition will see three adventurers tackle the last 500 miles of their 40,000-mile journey, half a century later in the same Series II. The original expedition was abandoned due to bad weather just south of the Arctic Circle and the Yukon River in Alaska. The latest attempt will see three current Cambridge students join the original trio of Mike Andrews, Ben Mackworth-Praed and Martin Hugh-Jones. The students are currently overseeing the restoration of the Series II, led by enthusiast Ed Angel. At 48,000 km, the Pan-American Highway is the longest driveable road in the world, starting in Buenos Aries before plunging down to Ushuaia, ahead of a northern drive to Alaska in North…

Risk assessment I’ve mentioned the pitfalls of car insurance before, particularly with reference to modified vehicles, but it does seem that the message isn’t getting through to enough people. I read on an social media site recently the words of a young woman: “I haven’t told my insurance company about my new wheels and tyres because my insurance is expensive enough as it is. I don’t want them to put the premium up.” I had to explain that not telling an insurance company about a modification to your vehicle that may alter the premium is not a clever thing at all. This young lady, and anyone else who does the same thing, is guilty of obtaining car insurance by fraud, and, in fact, is not covered by that insurance policy…

KING’S RANSOM WITH THE prices Defenders are fetching these days, you don’t expect to find one abandoned and being reclaimed by nature, but this is the scene photographer Jay Russell chanced upon at a disused brick clay pit near his Cambridgeshire home. The side locker points to it being an ex-military One Ten. The location is King’s Dyke, named after King Canute – the Danish monarch who legend has it tried in vain to order back the advancing tide, and who sailed along the old course of the River Nene in the early 11th Century en route to Whittlesey Mere, where he was nearly shipwrecked in a tempest. Whittlesey Mere – once England’s second-largest lake, and bettered only by Lake Windermere – is no more. It was drained by the…

From being lost in the African bush as a child, to moving to Europe and starting up a successful food company. It’s fair to say Malcolm Riley certainly hasn’t had a run-of-the-mill life thus far. Much more accustomed to the mill is Malcolm’s Series III. In fact, he found it in a converted mill three years ago, on the eve of his company, The African Chef, making it big. “I definitely think it was quite a pivotal piece of the puzzle. It really encapsulated people’s imagination.” Malcolm came to Britain from Zambia in 1997 with very little apart from a big idea. Using his roots and know how, he set up his business, selling African cuisine at food festivals and online. Five years ago and with a business failing to…

There is a wonderful sense of old and new, of tradition and cutting-edge technology, with Group Rhodes of Wakefield. An employee once quipped that this 190-year-old company “creates space-age out of stone-age”, and there’s a lot of truth in that. For this outwardly ordinary outfit is a world leader in creating presses to make a vast range of products across the globe – including car manufacturing. In fact they’ve become the go-to guys for making presses to shape titanium – a process known as superplastic forming – and they’re now supplying some of the world’s aerospace companies including a household name aircraft manufacturer in the US. Group Rhodes is also double winner of the prestigious Queen’s award for enterprise, for innovation (2010) and for its outstanding achievements in overseas markets,…

Okay, I admit it – I'm biased. I've always loved the Billing Show. Just thinking of it brings back a host of happy memories of sunny days spent in the company of Land Rovers and Land Rover folk. And what can be better than that? Even a diehard Billing fan like myself has to admit that the greatest show on Earth did go through a lean spell. A few years back it was under pressure from a host of other rival events and seemed to be in the doldrums. Visitor numbers were in decline and some pessimists even predicted the demise of the world's oldest Land Rover show. But the obituaries were premature. Two years ago, the organisers got it by the scruff of the neck and breathed new life…

Four Land Rovers and eight LLROC members – myself in my 1996 110 300Tdi Defender, John Bennett and Chris Sweeney in John’s 300Tdi 1996 Discovery, Sean and Sandie Hutton in their 200Tdi 110 Defender and Nigel Gregson and two sons, Matthew and Andrew in Nigel’s Td5 110 Defender – made the long trek to France. Our first port of call was Albert, where we visited the Museum of the Battle of the Somme. Then, in the town of Arras, we entered the famous caves where the Allies hid an entire army until the time came to fight. There are so many cemeteries and monuments of Canadian, British, Commonwealth and French soldiers to visit in such a small area, including the Thiepval and the Ulster monuments. After four nights in Albert,…

The electronic park brake (EPB) is here to stay. It’s fitted to every current model of Land Rover except, of course, Defender where too much re-design would be involved and it would be objectionably out of character anyway. The EPB certainly makes life easy. A mere flick of the lightweight switch lever applies the park brakes sufficiently to render the vehicle immovable on the steepest slopes. It’s a similar wimp’s effort to release it, and it will even release for you if you forget when driving off. But do we need this, and what was wrong with pulling a traditional lever and pressing the button to set it? Nothing, of course. It’s a matter of competitive vehicle manufacturers keeping up with technology, keeping weight down for emissions, monitoring costs, and…

LAND ROVER Experience Scotland has announced a series of Adventure Trek Days for enthusiasts and thrill-seekers alike. The treks will take participants through the heart of the Perthshire countryside on a number of off-road and private tracks, led by Land Rover instructors. The first Overnight Adventure Trek is on September 19 to 20, with the Autumn Classic Adventure Trek Day on October 4, which will celebrate the life of the Defender ahead the end of its production line this year. The third and final trek day will take place on December 29, and dubbed the Christmas Adventure Trek. The one-day treks will set adventurers back £125 per vehicle for the privilege, while the two-day trek in September will cost £295. Check it out at: http://www.scotland.landroverexperience.co.uk…

SEND US YOUR SHOTS Let us know what you’ve been up to – email patrick@lrm.co.uk…

Progress (or not) What some people call progress isn’t always a good thing. In fact it can be positively bad. For example, what politicians describe as ‘progress’ usually means a change for the worse in which a minority of rich people are going to get even richer at the expense of the vast majority, whose quality of life will inevitably deteriorate. Very often that version of ‘progress’ will include the politicians’ other favourite word, ‘growth’, which usually involves losing hundreds or thousands more acres of our green and pleasant land for some ugly development. Locals are placated by the news that the ‘progress’ and ‘growth’ will ‘create jobs’. But if that ugly development is yet another out-of-town shopping centre, it means that a corresponding number of jobs will be lost…

I grew up with Series Is. My old man had a Series I in 1951, rolled it and mended it, and has had Land Rovers ever since. My first car was a 1950 80in which was given to me in a collection of packing cases and cardboard boxes, with the suggestion that if I wanted a car of my own then I’d ruddy well better get on and build it. I learned to drive in that 80 and used it every day, before upgrading to a 1955 86in Station Wagon, into which I slotted a straight-six because I wanted more power. Typical boy. These days, everyone wants a Series I, which was not the case 20 or even 10 years ago. It’s a generational thing: people start getting nostalgic about…

The gleaming Defender 90 you see on these pages is about to be driven to Africa for the adventure of a lifetime by a boy genius who rebuilt it himself and added some very clever inventions of his own. The lad concerned is Miles Podmore, who has just celebrated his 18th birthday. That’s a lot of achievement in one so young. I’d like to think that’s because Miles has been an avid LRM reader since the age of eight, but I’d be kidding myself. This lad is something special. At the age of 13, Miles bought his Land Rover, completely stripped it down to its component parts and rebuilt it, adding a few innovations of his own along the way, including a hybrid diesel/LPG system and a brilliant pneumatic spare…

When Henry Morton Stanley set out to look for the missing Scottish explorer David Livingstone in 1870, he needed 200 porters to carry his gear, plus horses and wagons. Only Jeremy Clarkson’s entourage during the aborted filming of Top Gear in Argentina can rival Stanley’s convoy for size and manpower. (A little birdie told me that about half of Clarkson’s convoy is used to carry his food.) Anyway, the more stuff and gear we have, the more carrying capacity we need. Now no matter which model Land Rover you are driving, that can become a problem. Throw into the mix a couple of kids and a wife that needs her home comforts such as a coffee plunger and an electric blanket, then suddenly your Land Rover certainly does not look…

THERE ARE plenty of pitfalls awaiting the would-be buyer of a secondhand Land Rover. And I don't just mean the unscrupulous seller who has disguised the rusty bulkhead with filler or hidden the corroded rear crossmember under a thick veneer of undercoat. How do you know the vehicle you're tempted to splash thousands of pounds on hasn't been written-off, scrapped or been stolen in the past? Does it even legally belong to the seller? Is there any outstanding hire purchase owing on it? The same criteria apply to any secondhand car purchase, of course. But it is particularly prevalent in the Land Rover market, where Defenders are particularly vulnerable to the attentions of the villains. Put simply, they're easy to nick, take apart and rebuild – and there's a huge…