Innholdsfortegnelse for December 2018 i Land Rover Monthly

A YEAR ago we ran a full-page advert in the magazine titled ‘LRM’s Got Talent’. It was an appeal to readers, to tell us why their Land Rover should be on the cover of LRM. The response was overwhelming. No surprises there – who would not want to be on the cover of their favourite Land Rover magazine? I have said this in the past and I will say it again: Land Rovers are not just the sum total of bits. They are a means to an end. That end might be a once-in-a-lifetime adventure. They make people happy. They can also frustrate. For enthusiasts they are an important part of the family and life. So, in the end we narrowed our selection down to just three owners. We wanted…

IN THESE days of expensive bling and instant gratification, it’s good to know that good old British workmanship and hard graft is still alive and kicking among Land Rover owners. You don’t have to spend a fortune on garage hours to achieve a green oval masterpiece, either. You don’t believe me? Well check out the creations of these three LRM readers and their machines. Andy, Benjamin and Alisdair aren’t even trained mechanics, but with some research, modest workshop skills and evenings and weekends spent in their garages, they achieved something very, very special. As Alisdair so succinctly puts it: Land Rovers are just nuts, bolts and bits of metal. There’s nothing too complicated if you really want to achieve DIY excellence. The Defender Td5, Discovery 1 and Series I on…

IN THE classic car world, there are four words that are guaranteed to raise the pulse of even the most hardened enthusiast: ‘low mileage timewarp condition’. Describing unmolested, totally original vehicles that have somehow remained hidden away and unused for decades, these rare finds are the holy grail for car collectors. They’re rare vehicles that – when revealed – look like they could have been driven out of the factory yesterday. As you’d expect, such vehicles are few and far between, but every now and again they do emerge from the shadows and enter the spotlight. BOM 437V is one such example – a remarkable Suffix G Range Rover from 1979 that first came into public view in May 2015 when it was part of the Bonhams Goodwood Festival of…

THERE ARE very few completely original Land Rovers in the world. By its very nature as a go-anywhere vehicle, many of them are modified, updated and patched up over the years as they swap hands or carry out another dutiful service. “Hue 166 isn’t as original as you might think,” says Susan Tonks, Bespoke Restorations Programme Leader at Jaguar Land Rover Classic. She’s sitting alongside me in a Series I as we bounce down the A283 with a queue of modern diesel executive cars behind us. “It has been fixed up over the years with whatever was available at the time, so there are all sorts of non-original bits on it. It’s all part of that very special car’s history.” The Series I we’re driving is the complete opposite to…

DV55 SGU, or to give this Defender its proper title, the Bonnie Mountain Coffee Land Rover and Catering Trailer, is the brainchild of Bonnie Colburn and James Robb, and it brings a whole new meaning to the term outdoor catering. When I met up with James and Bonnie in the village of Comrie, Scotland was still in the grip of winter. The local traffic had to negotiate its way through ice and snow. Not that this bothered the Defender, as these types of conditions are meat and drink to a Land Rover. “The idea of using the Landy as a mobile canteen dates back to 2015,” said James, who is a veteran of the Army Air Corps. Based at Middle Wallop in Hampshire, he spent ten years learning the intricacies…

WHERE: UK to Galicia WHEN: 2 - 10 Feb, Galicia South (week one), 9 - 17 Feb, Galicia North (week two), or you can go mad and join us for the whole two weeks. HOW MUCH: Week one or two from £2350 or the full monty £3350 for one vehicle (two persons). Includes return ferries, all good hotels, bed and breakfast. WHAT YOU NEED: • Land Rover with transfer box • Good all-terrain tyres • Winter clothing • Something to make a brew We do the rest, we can also hire you wheels and General Grabber AT2s to fit D4, D5, Range Rover Sport and current Range Rover models. LIMITED SPACES: We only take five vehicles per week.…

The Lifeboat Trophy RNLI 4x4 Navigation Challenge will be a new kind of 4x4 charity event and is not organised by the RNLI. This is a volunteer-organised event with the aim of 20 to 25 teams participating. Teams will be faced with a series of entertaining yet challenging puzzles, courses and activities that will test the teamwork of each team. This is officially a non-competitive event, the only winner will be the RNLI. However, the event will be structured in a way that teams must complete set challenges to build on a total of points, which at the end will win you the unique and prestigious Lifeboats Trophy. It's a three-day 4x4 navigational event that will take you through a mixture of on and off-road terrain suitable for most four-wheel…

Lincolnshire Land Rover Club's successful team comp safari, the Malachi, takes place at Wickenby Airfield near Market Rasen, over the weekend of November 10 and 11. The Malachi features afternoon and evening comp safari runs on the Saturday and day runs on the Sunday, with on-site camping available. This event normally attracts a very competitive entry for both ALRC and non-ALRC clubs competing for the overall team and individual awards. More details, regulations and entry forms can be found on the LLRC website. llrc.co.uk…

WE ALL know the jokes about the wipers on Series I and II Land Rovers. They’re fitted as single units for driver and passenger, working independently from each other, and they famously have a small handle allowing for manual wiping of the screen. To some, those manual handles are their saving grace, being the means to operate them if the motor has ceased to function. If they do work, they will likely be at different speeds between driver and passenger wipers, with one comically arcing in slow motion in relation to the other. That needn’t be the case. The wiper motor, made by Lucas and called the FW2, is relatively simple, and it offers good access to the working parts. Diagnosing issues is fairly straightforward, and the most common one…

BUYING A Land Rover is a big investment for most of us and the question most would-be buyers want answering is whether or not they should buy a diesel model. It’s something I get asked a lot – and my answer is a qualified yes. That may sound a controversial statement at the present time, where diesel values are falling due to scare mongering stories of air pollution and even the possibility of an outright diesel ban, but bear with me. First and foremost, the government will not be banning diesels any time soon. They can’t, because an outright diesel ban would make it impossible to meet their CO2 targets. Although particulates – microscopic pieces of soot – from diesel engines are higher in diesel engines than petrol ones, diesels…

THE SECOND annual Defender Jam with Exmoor and Britpart was a great success, and raised £476.64 for the brain injury clinic in Glasgow – a cause close to organiser Martyn Henderson’s heart, after they helped him with an injury a few years back. Once again, it was held within the stunning 2000-acre grounds of the boutique hotel Monachyle Mhor in Balquhidder, at the foot of stunning Scottish mountains. The idea is to bring together like-minded people, good food and drink, live music, and of course Land Rovers, for a fun-filled family festival, and the ingredients certainly work. With on-site camping and the very popular Strathearn Engineering Green Laning track that incorporated mud, grass, stone, a stream and loch (yes people actually got to drive through part of a loch), autojumble…

“The Defender has reached an exciting stage of it’s development” NEW DEFENDER has broken cover, with camouflaged prototypes being tested on public roads in Britain. After nearly three years of conjecture, we can finally reveal the shape of the model that will replace the iconic Defender that ended production at Land Rover’s Solihull factory in January 2016. Land Rover has admitted that the vehicle shown here is indeed the new Defender –and officially confirmed for the first time that it will be on sale in 2020. “We can confirm that customers around the world will be taking delivery of and enjoying Defender again from 2020,” said a Land Rover spokesperson. “Jaguar Land Rover runs a wide range of engineering and technology development programmes. We are unable to comment on the…

Second childhood A chance encounter gives Philip the opportunity to relive the days of his trialling youth TRIALLING WAS a big part of my life when I was growing up. It’s how my family got into Land Rovers – my father Brian had been a member of the Southern Rover Owners Club since the 1950s, but was told that he couldn’t trial with his Austin Champ, Willys Jeep or Dodge 6x6. So we ended up with a string of Land Rovers for competitions; the ‘Old Grey Mare’ Series I that mum used to take us to school on a Monday would have been trialling on the Sunday. I entered my first trial when I was 16, in the sand brown Series I that’s pictured on the page opposite, almost rolling…

DURING MY five years at LRM magazine this is my third time greenlaning in the county of Shropshire. In previous visits I have driven some impressive lanes, such as Cwms, Gatton, Rattling Hope, Hungerford Steps, Beambridge and Offas Dyke. The lanes of Shropshire can provide one with a delightful day out in your Land Rover. You just need to know where to go. My last two forays into Shropshire have been with Stu Pickering, the local GLASS rep and general good guy. Stu has one big flaw and its red. No, it’s not his hair. He drives a bright red 20-year-old 4.0-litre Jeep Wrangler. Who can blame this former Defender owner when you look at the current prices of Defenders? Other than that, we consider him a friend. As Stu…

STOP! BRAKE!” I scream. “I’m trying, the brakes aren’t working,” retorts Harley, my boyfriend. Before we can even think of grabbing the handbrake, our Freelander has shot back and hit a small brick wall. We narrowly escape plunging off the bridge and into the shallow water below. Assessing the damage, we discover we have shattered the back window and lost the door handle. In this moment, stuck in the middle of the Caucasus Mountains in Georgia, we realise we know very little about Land Rovers and off-roading in general. Later, reading our handbook, we learn that while reversing up a ravine we should have used minimal throttle. As soon as our tyres hit the tarmac, our harsh acceleration caught up with us – the wheels kept spinning and the brakes…

NINETY-EIGHT PAIRS of deep brown eyes look up as the elderly leaf-sprung Land Rover bumps and jolts across the field towards them. It’s feeding time on the farm and this herd of red deer, although domesticated, still have much of the natural caution of their wild brethren. They wait until the 1978 Series III comes to a halt before they edge towards the truck, checking out the human occupants. In the cab of the 109 is farmer John Savory (84) and standing on the wooden platform at the back is his son, Richard (55), both familiar faces to the deer, which now trot forward confidently. All 98 are hinds, heavily pregnant, and although they’ve been grazing on rich Norfolk grass all day, they need the extra protein boost from the…

WE KNEW that our itinerary in Central America was going to be hectic. Our plan was to travel across seven countries in four weeks before shipping the impassable (unless you were on the legendary 1970s Land Rover Trans-Americas expedition) Darien Gap from Panama to Colombia. Travelling in the tropics, the windows are always down. The problem with that is our plans have the tendency to go out of them. Let me explain... While driving our TDCi Defender from Baja to Mexico City, firming up our plan of how many days to spend in each country, the gearbox starts to emit a horrible grinding noise in sixth gear. After a quick prognosis on the side of the road, it looks and sounds like we will need a new gearbox. Sure enough,…

FROM August 24 to 27, Land Rover Owners Namibia (LRON) hosted its second Namibia Land Rover Festival at the Brandberg Rest Camp in Uis, Namibia, on the south-western coast of Africa. Compared to its maiden event in 2016, the club welcomed a quarter or more additional vehicles, bringing the total up to almost 200, with visitors travelling from as far as South Africa and Angola. Uis is a settlement located in Erongo Region, Namibia (in the former Damaraland), so not only do visitors get to enjoy the Land Rovers on display, various activities and meet like-minded people, but they can also explore the wonderful landscapes that are on offer. The full program started on Friday with Gold Rush I, which saw drivers retrieving Land Rover gold coins out of a…

Itinerary DAY ONE: 2 FEBRUARY On Saturday morning we take a ferry crossing from Portsmouth to Santander, arriving in Spain the following day. We then drive to Leon in the north-west of the country for our overnight stop at Hotel Riosol. Just a short walk from the city centre, it is the perfect base for exploring the restaurants and famous landmarks, such as the cathedral, whose history dates back to the 10th century. DAY TWO AND THREE: 3 - 4 FEBRUARY Today we start heading into Galicia to start our adventure. We’ll call in at Puebla de Sanabria, a small town in the province of Zamora, for a coffee and to pick up provisions for our first lunch in the mountains. The afternoon will be spent on the tracks, which…

The Shire Land Rover Club are once again holding a 4x4 Weekend at Seven Sisters, Walters Arena, Glyn Neath, on the weekend of October 27 and 28. This is a fun two days of off-roading for all the family in the beautiful Brecon Beacons. The weekend is ideal for all vehicles from standard motors to extreme off-roaders, and the site offers terrain suitable for everyone no matter what level of experience or vehicle you have. There will also be a night drive event on the Saturday evening, which will see everyone head out after the sun has set for a unique experience of off-roading in the dark. Details on the weekend and other events organised by the Shire Land Rover Club can be found on the club's website. shirelrc.com…

The Scottish Borders Hillrally takes place on November 17 - 18 at Forrest Estate, St Johns Town of Dalry in Dumfries. This year the Borders Hillrally is also the second and final round of the 2018 Hillrally Championship and will have a completely new, never-used-before stage, along with a number of new tracks which haven’t been used for many years and will feature three stages after dark bringing the total to 110 special stage miles over the two days. As in past years a full entry is expected but anyone wishing to marshal is more than welcome. More details can be found on the Borders Hillrally website. scottish-hillrally.co.uk…

I AM not a typical petrolhead. I’m not a speed junkie and I don’t see cars in terms of metal fashioned into machine to supply thrills. Track days don’t interest me unless they are remote, rutted tracks that disappear into the countryside and beg to be explored. That’s why I’m here today in the Breckland of East Anglia, pottering along pine-lined byways that have been around since Queen Boudicea’s day. Boudicea was Queen of the Iceni, a Celtic tribe that lived in these parts until the Romans invaded Britain about 2000 years ago. Like the Brexiteers of today, she was fiercely independent and didn’t like the thought of being ruled by a foreign power, so she rebelled. Unlike the Brexiteers, she didn’t do it by winning at the ballot box,…

THE SUMMER months with my own Land Rovers have been fairly run-of-the-mill, apart from a great day out greenlaning in my 110 V8 soft top. My cousins from Canada – Denis and Barb – were on an Ireland tour and I managed to get them up to Co Donegal for a few days. The funniest moment was when I turned onto the first lane of the day and said: “Right Barb, you take the wheel first.” When she got over the shock, Barb took to off-road driving like a natural. What a wonderful day! Lately, my Discovery 2 has only really been used for towing duties in GB on two runs to the Richards Chassis factory to collect new Land Rover chassis, as well as a detour to Newbury to…

IN THE previous incarnation of the Land Rover V8, as an 88-inch off roader, it had been at times a hard top, a hard top with side windows and then a full soft top. The old canvas tilt was showing its age and wasn’t suitable for the new long wheelbase 110 configuration. Way back when I converted the 88-inch Land Rover to full soft top, I sourced all of the hardware and the canvas tilt itself from All Wheel Trim Ltd in Witney, Oxfordshire. Now, with a decision made that the 110 would again have a full soft top, I spoke with All Wheel Trim boss, Kim Johnson, about the available options. The first good news was that some of my hardware would be reusable on the 110, for example…

THE ONE-DAY indoor show is back this November at the National Agricultural and Exhibition Centre, Warwickshire. The Great British Land Rover Show, sponsored by BFGoodrich, will showcase all the best Land Rover kit, parts and merchandise, overland travel specialists and equipment, insurance and tools. As well as the BFGoodrich Land Rover walkway, there is also a Live Land Rover Workshop, and car parks devoted strictly to Land Rovers. The 2.4-mile off-road course is sponsored by the All Wheel Drive Club at the show and you can drive around it in your own 4x4 for a small charge of £10 in advance or £15 on the day. Entry tickets are £7.50 in advance or £12.50 on the door, and advance ticket purchasers will be entered into a prize draw during the…

AS THE RAF marks its centenary and Land Rover its 70th, what better way to celebrate than with a tie-up? After all, the car maker and the military have gone hand in hand since the very beginning. In this new vehicle partnership, Land Rover will be assisting the famous RAF Chinook Display Team with ground support for offseason activities in 2018 and then for the full display schedule in 2019. Making full use of the latest Discovery’s class-leading versatility and capability, the vehicle (complete with bespoke Chinook Display Team wrap) will enable a huge amount of flexibility on the display circuit, with a significant ground footprint of engineers and aircrew, and be able to transport a growing inventory of equipment and products taken to public shows. Chinook and Land Rover…

Greghilton3: Our family’s new Series III SWB arrived at the beginning of May. Great timing as we had three months of roof-off Land Rover adventures in it. It easily carried two grown-ups, two kids and the dog. We did various laning trips within ten miles of where we live and saw deer, owls, badgers and foxes. It was absolutely brilliant and all because we’d bought a Land Rover. misssunshinemedia: People constantly ask if I have loads of money and don’t work because of all the things I do in my Land Rover. Negative, I just appreciate and take advantage of the fact that I live close to North Wales, the Shropshire Hills and the Peak District. This summer gave me the opportunity to do more of what I love: hills,…

BACK AT the Land Rover 70th Anniversary celebrations in Cooma I met up with Pieter of Safari Overlanders. These guys are the sole distributors for Melvill and Moon in Australia. For those of you that have not come across them before, I would describe their products as high-end safari leisure gear. We’re not talking your usual cheap nylon throwaway products. At the show they had a beautiful Heritage Edition 110 decked out with their sand colour seat covers. Now, I really have not had much experience with seat covers, but they usually always seem to be baggy and often make the interior look pretty scruffy. I can only guess they are generic covers that fit a range of vehicles. Not so with Melvill and Moon – these covers actually fit…

Improvising A BIG part of Land Rover’s traditional appeal is the idea that if the vehicle breaks down in the middle of the Kalahari Desert, you can usually get it going again with a half-inch AF open-ended spanner, baler twine and a couple of Jubilee clips. This may not be entirely accurate but there is at least a grain of truth in it: with a small tool kit and a few basic materials it is often possible to effect a repair which will last long enough to get you to the nearest garage. It always feels good to overcome mechanical adversity through sheer inventiveness, rather than just phoning for a breakdown truck. I had owned my first Land Rover (a Series III Lightweight) for just two days when I managed…

THE ESSEX Land Rover Club has traditionally been a trialling and greenlaning club, but in recent years charity support events such as marshalling Race For Life, Rover Rescue and raising money for the Air Ambulance at local shows have been as popular, but it seemed like there was still space for another type of event that would bring together the club’s classic vehicles and their owners for a day out in the Essex countryside. The club’s directors, Ralph and Sue Coulson, carried out some research on a route, including a dry run taking in some of the eateries along the way – it’s such a hardship sometimes. The chosen day arrived for the first ELRC Classic Road Run, and the weather gods had been kind – it was very pleasant…

The Malvern 4x4 & Vintage Spares Day & Land Rover Autojumble takes place on October 28 at the Three Counties Showground, Malvern. There are drive-in indoor plots available for traders in the Wye Exhibition Halls, along with outdoor plots. The doors will open for the public at 9.00 am until 1.00 pm and admission is £6.50 per adult, under 15s go free. There is an on-site restaurant and free parking available. Details can be found on the organiser's website along with information on other spares and autojumble days and shows, plus trade booking forms. 4x4sparesday.co.uk…

GOING TO Africa to see my tribe and family is always an emotional affair. Suddenly I have instant access to my nearest and dearest, while when I am in the UK they are 10,000 miles away. What makes it even more special is that my friend Jacques Smit always leaves a Landy of some description at the airport for me. This time it was a Freelander 2 Td4 which has done over 350,000 kilometres. It is normally a courtesy car as Jacques runs two independent Land Rover garages and is fast becoming the Western Cape’s go to guy for solid service and quality work. He tells me that this Freelander was involved in a multi-car pile up and was written off by the insurers. The damage was actually minimal and…

AH, HOLIDAYS. To many, they immediately think of aeroplanes, hotels, swimming pools and buffet dining. To those people, travel is something they do only on holiday. They think air travel is glamorous, exciting, and see their skin cancer damage as a badge of honour to wear in the office. Me? You can stick all of that up your E-passport scanner. I have travelled too much for work, and know what travel is about. Airports to me mean hassle. Hassle particularly taking my equipment – and don’t get me started on hotels. I have a book of stories there, folks. No, my holidays involve three things; the United Kingdom, my family, and my Range Rover Classic. There are some fantastic places within our shores, and the only glamorous method of transport…

IT’S BEEN a whole 12 months since buying into ‘modern’ Land Rover ownership. During that time many Land Rover enthusiasts have been asking how I’ve been getting on with my Discovery 3. These are people who would consider buying one except for the fact that they are seriously concerned about taking on a potential money pit. They await in anticipation for my negative answers but I refuse to talk bad of my D3. Granted, it certainly hasn’t been the cheapest form of transport I have ever owned and it has been a tad nail-biting at times, especially when taking it in for repairs. However, with the exception of the glow plugs, which was hopefully a one-off, I have not had any major or expensive issues over the past year. You…

A SUDDEN LOSS of coolant from deep in the engine bay of a Discovery 3 or Range Rover Sport 2.7-litre V6 diesel could lead to a serious roadside breakdown at best, or a seized engine at worst. And we’ve found exactly the place inside the packed engine bay where this might happen. It’s worth checking this, or asking your garage to check at the next service. If all is well, you’ll have peace of mind. If not, a timely repair could save your engine. This job cropped up when we were replacing the air conditioning condenser with Steve Grant in Britpart’s workshop, shown in the November issue of LRM. It was only by removing a few parts that we were able see this normally hidden part of the cooling system,…

NOT EVERYONE has the benefit of a fixed work bench in their garage. If you have a typical lock-up garage, it’s unlikely there is enough room for a bench at one end that can be accessed unless your Land Rover is partially or fully pushed outside. Awkwardly-shaped and very corroded or dirty pieces of work are often best tackled outside anyway, so supporting them at a comfortable working height is preferable to kneeling or bending for extended periods. The original Black & Decker WorkMate has been around for decades, made famous in the 1970s, and was designed by Ron Hickman, the man behind the design of the Lotus Elan, Elan 2+2 and Europa. We requested a WorkMate for our test but none was submitted. The four benches in our test…

Occupation? Student (Year 10). Where are you from? South Croydon, in London. What’s the story? This Series III had been sitting in a garden alongside a few others for many a year. In fact, our family must have gone past it thousands of times. Eventually we started to call it the Land Rover house. Last Christmas my mum and I sent the person who lives there a letter; in it we asked if they were interested in selling one of them to us. How did it progress from there? We went around to his place to look at a 1958 Series II that I really liked, but before we could put in an offer it was sold. It was then that I saw Alba, the Series III, and so I…