Innholdsfortegnelse for March 2018 i Land Rover Monthly

The classic and enthusiasts Land Rover market is changing at a rather rapid rate. A year or two ago a new Defender door cost £200. Now you will be lucky to get one for £500. People in the know are stockpiling certain bits. I have friends in Australia and South Africa buying up Land Rovers and exporting them to the UK. Crazy considering that they started life in the UK. Gone are the days where Jaguar Land Rover were only interested in producing new vehicles at a premium price. They are now rebuilding and restoring Series Is and Classic Range Rovers before selling them for the same price as a new big body Range Rover. Not only are they taking on the likes of BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Toyota, but they…

BILLED TO be the largest Land Rover festival in the UK this summer, the Kelmarsh show is also the only event to take place in the school summer holidays. Taking place from July 27 to 29 means family and friends can make a short break of it with camping extended over five nights. Set to be even bigger and better than last year, with over 100 trade stands, technical demos from industry experts, 80 club displays, a huge off-road course and a free entertainment zone for the kids’ this is one Land Rover show you do not want to miss. Book now via kelmarshlandrovershow.com.…

DESPITE TOUGH conditions in some key markets, Jaguar Land Rover achieved its best-ever full-year global sales in 2017. With sales of 621,109 vehicles, it is up seven per cent on the prior year and more than triples the 2009 figure. The company’s seventh successive year of sales growth was driven by the introduction of new models, increased uptake of its Ingenium clean diesel and petrol engines and the development of its manufacturing operations around the world to increase capacity. Land Rover in particular retailed a record 442,508 vehicles, up two per cent on 2016. The best-seller for the year was the Discovery Sport, selling 126,078 vehicles. Also notable were sales of the Range Rover Evoque and Range Rover Sport, selling more than 190,000 vehicles in 2017.…

SERIES BUMP STOPS PRICE £23.90 Polybush use only the best polyurethane for their bump stops, which is a good job as they perform the very important task of preventing metal-on-metal contact without tearing in the process. And now, they have added to their extensive range with 1DJ bump stops which will fit all Series Land Rover models. polybush.co.uk ROOF BAR PRICE £82.80 Don’t want a roof rack but still want to carry or mount stuff on the roof of your Defender? Try this lightweight roof bar which can carry loads of up to 100 kg. Will fit a Defender produced in 1991 and after. johncraddocksltd.co.uk DRYSACKS PRICE £8.99 Sick of your gear getting wet? Use these PackDivider Drysacks and that won’t happen. Available in four sizes: 2L, 4L, 8L and…

YOU MAY have read in last month’s LRM that Land Rover has just launched a Commercial version of the Discovery. Whether it will sell as well as the old Discovery 3 and 4 Commercials is anybody’s guess – there’s no doubting it has the loadspace inside, but a lot of people don’t like the fact that the new Discovery’s more rounded shape makes it harder to get bulky objects past the tailgate aperture. At least Land Rover is continuing to market the new vehicle as a workhorse, just like its predecessors. There have been Commercial versions of the Discovery since the model’s early days. I myself bought a Discovery 1 Commercial as a company vehicle brand new from Wadham Kennings in Guildford, because we could claim the VAT back. It…

One of my local customers has a rather sweet little Series IIA (88in petrol), which visited the workshop for the first time a few months ago to be fitted with a new set of parabolic springs. The customer rang me up not long ago to ask if I could take a look at the vehicle as it had started cutting out when pulling up at junctions. I asked if he knew what kind of carburettor it had, and he replied Weber, so I thought I already knew what the problem would be. Series IIAs left the factory with one of two types of carburettor: Solex PA40 up to 1967, and Zenith 36IV (the same as a Series III) from 1967 to 1971. Both types of carburettor have their foibles, especially…

Our Discovery HSE Si6 is surrounded by giants. Immense sand dunes tower above the vehicle, dwarfing us and the rest of the Discovery convoy we are part of. It’s day two of the 2017 Land Rover Experience Peru and we are exploring the spectacular desert country just inland from Peru’s west coast tourist hub of Pisco. It is midday, and the sand is hot and soft. These challenging driving conditions are, today, a cinch – raising the Discovery’s suspension and shifting into sand mode has allowed drivers to treat this terrain with some disdain, albeit still with the required caution. The resulting driving experience is best described using that oft-used cliché of a roller-coaster ride, with our Discovery convoy driving up, down and alongside some impressive dunes for an afternoon.…

The Toylander and similar Land Rover-themed pedal cars have become a legend in their own right in recent years and have even spawned their own club scene. They are hugely popular with kids, obviously, and in just about every case they have been inspired by the families’ love of Land Rovers. But not always. Back in 2016, Graeme Wilson was looking for a light restoration project, but was undecided what to go for. However, stood in the garden of his home in Bridge of Don, near Aberdeen one day his mind was made up when his young sons Stewart and Callum pedalled past in their beloved Series-style Toylander. “I wasn’t looking specifically for a Series III; I was looking for a light restoration project, really. I had been considering an…

If, like me, you spend far too much of your time scanning eBay looking for interesting things to do with Land Rovers, you might have seen the company’s impressive Mobile Exhibition Unit for sale recently. With an asking price of £20,000, which was later reduced to £14,000, you’d have needed deep pockets if you fancied bidding. But at that money it was also a bit of a bargain, given that it cost over half a million pounds to create! It has a fascinating history, not least in terms of the pivotal role it played in the launch of the vehicle that was destined to become the company’s best-selling product by far. In the mid-1990s, Land Rover had created the CB40, later to be known as the Freelander. The goal was…

FEBRUARY 8 – 25 Morocco - One Life Adventure, Sahara Occidental Expedition Morocco onelifeadventure.co.uk FEBRUARY 10 – 11 North East Rover Owners Club, CCV / RTV Trial West Woodburn, Hexham nero.org.uk FEBRUARY 10 – 11 The Footman James Great Western Classic Car Show Bath & West Showground, Shepton Mallet classicmagazines.co.uk FEBRUARY 10 – 19 USA – The Chicago Auto Show McCormick Place, Chicago chicagoautoshow.com FEBRUARY 11 Cornwall & Devon LRC, CCV Trial Bush Farm, Saltash cdlrc.com FEBRUARY 11 Midland Rover Owners Club, RTV Trial Coney Green, Stourport-on-Seven mroc.co.uk FEBRUARY 11 Northern Ireland Land Rover Club, SAE Event Chruchtown landrover-club.com FEBRUARY 11 Peak & Durkeries LRC, CCV Trial Grasscroft Wood, Dronfield panddlrc.co.uk FEBRUARY 11 Red Roses Land Rover Club, Tyro & CCV Trial Burnley landroverclub.co.uk FEBRUARY 11 Somerset & Wiltshire LRC,…

The Defender 130 Tipper has been a little busy again recently on a wide variety of jobs around home and also across the Irish sea, in Wales and England. At home, I have some ground works underway to create a new concrete work area beside the workshop, close to the pedestrian door. This will reduce the amount of Land Rover spannering taking place on the driveway in good weather, with the added bonus of being closer to the tools and parts storage area. The new ground works initially brought the 130 Tipper into play, to haul away all of the vegetation (much of which was weeds) to the HRC, followed by unwanted soil and rubble. The Land Rover then helped me to move some hard fill to the area, in…

TREVOR CUTHBERT TOOLS NEEDED: General workshop tools, oil drain container, transmission oil filler unit or oil syringe. TIME: FOUR HOURS COST:£112 DIFFICULTY RATING CONTACTS: • BLRC Ltd • blrcvehiclespecialist.co.uk • Tel: 02897 511763 It is probably no surprise that a large proportion of the work involved in a major service (B service) of a Land Rover Defender takes place beneath the vehicle. All of the procedures carried out here could be completed with the Land Rover on the ground using a jack and axle stands, although it is clearly a lot easier with the Land Rover raised on a vehicle ramp (lift). This Defender was taken for a good test drive prior to the service, to get a feel for how the truck was performing, to detect any problems or…

Tell us about your Series III I first spotted it parked up in a local driveway. It had a tree growing through the bumper. I watched it longingly for 18 months until my fiancée persuaded me to knock on the owner’s door to ask if he was interested in selling it. Lucky for me he was. I found out that it had been parked up for 17 years. After a bit of research and checking out the chassis, bulkhead and engine all matched I bought it. I had very little mechanical experience but armed with a Haynes manual and YouTube I started spending evenings and weekends tinkering away on it. Is the engine sound? When I fired it up it ran surprisingly well but it was a little on the…

HAVING BEEN missing for some 63 years, Land Rover discovered the vehicle that started it all – one of the three pre-production vehicles shown at the 1948 Amsterdam Motor Show launch. These were the very models that gave the world its first glimpse of the shape that would become instantly recognisable as a Land Rover. The demonstration vehicle was last on the road in the 1960s, after which it apparently spent 20 years in a field in Wales before being bought as a restoration project. Sadly, it was to lay, once again, languishing unfinished in a garden. Following its surprise discovery – ironically just a few miles from where it was built in Solihull – the experts at Jaguar Land Rover Classic Works spent months researching company archives to unravel…

TO KICK off a big year of rugby and the second half of the season, Land Rover gathered a group of its high-profile rugby ambassadors for a day of down time with some off-road driving as they put the latest vehicle range through their paces. He might be the playmaker on the pitch but George Ford had to take direction from Ellis Genge on the day. Genge was a natural in the difficult terrain, unsurprising for a man renowned for his uncompromising style of play. The Leicester Tigers prop guided his teammate through some challenging off-road situations safely as he led a convoy of cars that also included Harlequins full back Mike Brown who collaborated with British and Irish Lions skipper Sam Warburton OBE. Land Rover has a heritage in…

WOULD YOU pay £150,000 for a secondhand Defender? If the answer is yes, then Land Rover could have just the vehicle you’re looking for. It has the biggest and most jaw-dropping power unit ever stuck under the bonnet of a Defender – and a price tag to match. Land Rover is turning back the clock to reintroduce the iconic model that finished production over two years ago. It is doing so by re-engineering 150 existing Defenders, which will be known as the Defender Works V8. And to achieve that they will be turning the clock back even further – in this case 20 years – by installing a powerful V8 petrol engine under the bonnet. This is nothing new, because Land Rover first did this in 1979, with the legendary…

One of the occupational hazards in dealing with quirky old vehicles is that occasionally you get so immersed in arcane technical issues that you overlook the blindingly obvious. Sometimes you need to take a step back, get yourself a nice big mug of tea and a chocolate biscuit, and wait for the solution to come to you. This was how I ended up solving an overheating problem on a 1989 Ninety that came into the workshop just before Christmas. The vehicle had originally been powered, if that isn’t too strong a word, by a 19J turbodiesel of the type that kept Land Rover’s warranty department busy throughout the second half of the 1980s. This had blown up (as tends to happen with ageing 19Js) and had been replaced by a…

DEEP IN the middle of a very muddy wood there’s the muted roar of a furious diesel engine as a startling orange Land Rover guns up the rutted slope, its big knobbly tyres sending mud and twigs in all directions. In the driver’s seat, Carl Conroy is grinning wildly as he hangs on tight to the steering wheel. We’ve come here, to Nottinghamshire, to meet this man and his very special creation. As rendezvous go, this is pretty impressive. Carl is still grinning as he slides to a halt and climbs down from the cab of his Ninety pick-up. His grin gets even wider as we tell him the latest news: Solihull has just announced the (brief ) resurrection of the Defender. The vehicle we all thought had been laid…

While Bradford might be famous for a number of things – such as its many museums, shops, Michelin-starred restaurants, parks and UNESCO sites, as the editor of a Land Rover magazine, I'm only interested in one thing when I visit that part of Yorkshire. For those that haven't guessed, it is the coachbuilder and proudly British Defender fan, Afzal Kahn of Kahn Design. Upon arrival at their HQ I notice that there are other vehicles besides Land Rovers that have received the Kahn Design treatment, including a Mercedes-Benz G Class G350 BlueTEC G6, which is now wearing a wide body kit. There is also a Jeep Wrangler that has been transformed into a Black Hawk Edition by the Chelsea Truck Company, one of several companies within Kahn Design. It is…

Greg King, restoration coordinator and programme engineer at JLR Classic Works, puts their Defender Works V8 through its paces on a private farm track in the Elan Valley, Wales. Land Rover is launching a limited run of 150 of these 400bhp V8s to mark the company's 70th birthday. By coincidence, Greg was the body and trim engineer on the 50th anniversary limited edition Defender that was released 20 years ago to mark Land Rover's 50th anniversary (and now owns a very low mileage one)! For more on the Defender Works V8 turn to page 16. This striking image was taken by the legendary Land Rover snapper, Nick Dimbleby.…

MAY12–13 Classic Land Rover Show The Classic Land Rover Show returns to the British Motor Museum at Gaydon in 2018 over the weekend of May 12 and 13. And everyone is invited to celebrate 70 years of the Land Rover marque along with 50 years of the Lightweight at this packed event. The show will feature club stands and displays of classic Land Rovers and a trade area with Land Rover merchandise and vehicle parts. There will also be a ‘Best Dressed’ exhibitors award with guest judges looking for authenticity and attention to detail so make sure your outfit matches the era of your vehicle. Details can be found on the Museum’s website. britishmotormuseum.co.uk/events/the-classic-land-rover-show JULY 27 – 29 Kelmarsh Land Rover Show After its very successful move last year to…

ADVERSE WEATHER seems to bring out the best in most Land Rover owners. Whether it’s floods, gales or snow, you can be sure to hear tales of Land Rover volunteers rescuing stranded motorists, pulling stricken vehicles out of trouble and getting essential medical supplies and/or staff where they need to be. When there’s an emergency, you can rely upon our lot to be on hand to help. When the first heavy snow of this winter arrived suddenly in my corner of Northamptonshire, the road to the nearest village was impassable for ordinary cars, who couldn’t get up two steep hills. It’s always the same when the weather turns cold: the council grits the main roads, and streets in town, but avoids the country lanes between the villages. That’s good news…

In the mid 1980s, if you bought a new Range Rover, one of the things it came with was a cassette tape. Called Driving it Home it was intended for you to play after collecting the car, on your way home. A silk-voiced gentleman speaking the Queen’s English talked you through all the features of the vehicle in turn, how to operate them, how great your taste was, and probably let you know you had not just left for home, but in more ways than one, had arrived. I had a copy as a young boy and listened to it again and again. Years later, I eventually passed it on to historian James Taylor for his archive. For a car enthusiast driving any car for the first time is always…

If everything had gone as planned, this should really have been the final episode in the series. Instead, we’re a little behind, so it has become the penultimate one. This month we check through the mechanicals, hopefully getting to a point where the car is mechanically as good as it can be. That leaves us pretty much only the front wings, secondary wiring loom, tyres and hood to sort. We left you last month having got the car started again and, somewhat carried away, we even had a drive around the farm in it. It was thrilling indeed to see it moving under its own power again, giving a hint of its new form. Having calmed down, it was time to concentrate again because we still had plenty of work…

Last month we looked at how to replace a Defender or earlier Ninety/ One Ten tail door. Now we’re replacing the side doors, which is a very different job involving more equipment being built into the shell and a more involved alignment procedure. As with the tail door, barring accident damage, the most common reason for fitting new doors is corrosion and, on the side doors, there are two main concerns. The aluminium door skins of all pre-TDCi (Puma) models typically corrode along the bottom, producing the unsightly white corrosion deposits. This electrolytic corrosion is produced by the combination of moisture and the close proximity of the inner steel frame to the outer aluminium skin. The same applies higher up, just below window level where the skin corrodes in the…

SHOW ORGANISERS of the Lancaster Insurance Classic and Supercars Show have decided that the marque feature this year will be a celebration of Land Rover. Andrew Evanson, Senior Operations Manager at Lancaster Insurance, comments: “What better brand to celebrate than 70 years of the Land Rover. Land Rovers, for me, signify the best of British and I’m looking forward to seeing the range on display.” Taking place in July 15, this prestigious charity event is regarded as one of the premier classic and supercar shows in southern England. Over 2000 cars will be on display, in addition to 150 trade, craft and auto jumble stands, a car auction, live music and amusements for children. Sponsored by Yeovil Land Rover, Somerset, this celebration of Land Rover’s 70th anniversary should be a…

DURING THE afternoon of Saturday June 30 at The Billing Off Road Show, a World Record of the Largest Parade of Land Rover/Range Rover vehicles will be attempted – and you can be a part of it with vehicles of all ages welcome. All you have to do to enter this parade is wear a Billing Off Road Show wristband, as either a day visitor or a camper. The cost to enter is £5 and includes a sticker. The two-mile parade will take place around an internationally-recognised site of importance for nature and wildlife, which actually makes up part of the Lakeside off-road course. Fear not though, there will be no obstacles, just grass and perhaps a few muddy puddles to contend with. As well as potentially making the Guinness…

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Following on from your advice in LRM on driving your Land Rover safely in winter, I’d just like to add a comment having done a really good skidpan training course at Castle Combe. Interestingly, the first thing they tell you to do in any situation where there is, or is likely to be a skid, is to stand on the clutch. This frees the driven wheels, which are no longer affected by the engine, so they cannot give drive or engine braking. This frees the driver to supply braking inputs as and when needed, which is what you are taught to do to pass the emergency stop part of the driving test. You do not floor the clutch just to stop the engine from stalling! This winter I was in…

SOME FOLK don’t like old Series Land Rovers: they say they’re too slow and smoky. But not Frank Rothwell, who made his much slower and smokier by fitting a steam engine in his Series IIA. Frank bought a 1967 88in SIIA for £4500, then removed the original 2.25 petrol engine and gearbox and replaced them with a half-size scale replica of the steam engine that drove the Foden steam wagon a century ago. He then spent over 1000 hours installing the kit. At the age of 67, when many men his age are reaching for the pipe and slippers, Frank is very different. He runs a large company building and hiring portable buildings and employing 40 staff. Not bad for a man who left school at 14 to work on…

Ican’t quite believe that I’m sitting in the same seat I sat in as a kid, my younger brother Steven sitting opposite, Mum in the front with Dad driving, and our big caravan bobbing along behind. This car was Dad’s pride and joy,” exclaimed Paul New. A time-served panel beater and painter, and currently an aircraft tug driver at Gatwick Airport, Paul has just been reunited with the Series I that was his family’s car for over 32 years, from 1957 until 1989. “One evening I was thinking about my Dad, who sadly died in 1995, and I decided to Google the registration number of his old Land Rover, not really expecting to find anything. I was astonished to discover the car on the Dunsfold Collection website, beautifully restored and…

ON THE back of a significant increase in interest in the world of 4x4 vehicles in general, and the emergence of the market for leisure and lifestyle four-wheel drive vehicles, David took the bold and innovative decision to launch Overlander 4x4, a magazine “for all four-wheel drivers, owners and enthusiasts”. It was the first of its kind in the UK. Ably assisted by Brian Hartley as features writer, and Mike Hallett who covered the technical topics, David published the first groundbreaking issue in May 1982. His original plan had been to create a magazine dedicated to Land Rover vehicles, and he planned to call it Overland Rover, but Brian was of the view that there wouldn’t be enough to write about, so Land Rover fans hoping for such a journal…

Our first stop south of Auckland is Rotorua, an area famous for its thermal activities so there is an eggy sulphur aroma in the air everywhere we go. It also presents an opportunity for a free outdoor hot pool. We are told of a place on the side of the road where a hot stream meets the cold stream and you just bob along to find your happy place. A quick search of our Galileo map confirms where it is and we spend the morning in the peaceful surroundings of the native woodlands in the hot stream. We also visit the boiling mud pools before moving on to Lake Taupo, one of New Zealand’s most famous lakes. On our way, we receive a message from Chris, another Defender owner we…

The Malachi is the biggest Comp Safari in the Lincolnshire Land Rover Club’s calendar. It has a reputation for being a test of both driver and vehicle and generally the weather for the event is nearly always the coldest that you can imagine – horizontal sleet being the norm. This year [2017] the club realised that Lincs have been running this event for 25 years in total: 20 years as the Malachi, two years prior to this as a two-day Wickenby Comp Safari and the three years prior to that as a two-day Comp at the infamous Foxhills at Scunthorpe. It was therefore appropriate to see the event so well supported by 25 motors – all from far and wide. With the club’s brilliant clerk of course Matt Elvin, medics…

People have lost their sense of adventure. We live our lives through screens or other people’s social media posts. TV, phones and tablets have taken over. We take the easy road instead of the adventurous one. Last Christmas my wife and son flew to Northern Ireland for a break. They left a week or so before me as I still had to finish off the February issue. I decided to instead take the Stena ferry from Liverpool to Belfast. Yes I know that the Liverpool docks are miles from my house (170 to be precise) and the ferry crossing takes eight hours, but I had a new Range Rover Velar R-Dynamic HSE on test. Swapping a 2.8 litre petrol engine for a V6 3 litre diesel, was no doubt going…

Raising a Land Rover to change a wheel or for servicing is a challenge for standard equipment due to the weights and ground clearances typically involved. Our test features three tonne trolley jacks, which due to their 30 kg plus weights, means it’s unlikely you’ll keep one on-board for emergencies, so they have been tested with workshop, showroom, home garage or driveway use in mind. Although many older Land Rover derivatives weigh less than three tonnes, the added margin of comfort and capability is ideal for vehicles that might be fully laden or towing. Smaller trolley jacks are far less stable once a heavy vehicle is clear of the ground and typically, they don’t achieve the maximum heights required. Height is worth bearing in mind if you also use a…

WHEN IT comes to secondhand choices, there is no model to compare with the Discovery. There are five models to choose from, spanning almost 30 years, with prices from £500 to £50,000. And despite that massive gap in values they all have unparalleled towing ability and supreme versatility in common. Unfortunately, most Discovery 1s now found on the secondhand market have led hard lives. Typical examples will have around 200,000 miles on the clock, which in itself isn’t a problem so long as they have been religiously serviced and meticulously maintained. And unless the seller has the paperwork to prove it (unlikely on a vehicle more than 20 years-old) you’re taking a risk. Happily, that risk isn’t likely to prove too costly. Decent D1s can be found for less than…