Innholdsfortegnelse for January 2019 i Land Rover Monthly

TWO HUNDRED and fifty issues. Wow! I’m exhausted just thinking about it. Who would have believed, as we struggled against the odds to get our first issue onto the newsagents’ shelves way back in the summer of 1998, that our fledgling magazine would achieve such great success over the next 20 years. But, hey, LRM made it through. The ups have been greater than the downs and, today, Land Rover Monthly stands at the forefront, continuing its proud tradition of partnership with its dedicated readers. For me, it has always been LRM’s ability to get to the root of the enthusiasm for all things Land Rover that has been its greatest strength. Over the years, my personal favourite features have been the travelogues, as hardy Land Rover souls venture out…

IN MY younger days, before I started working on Land Rovers for a living I had a bit of a thing for V8-engined examples of the breed. I ran a Stage One V8 (the Marine Blue example pictured above) as daily transport for a little while. Prior to that I owned an early One Ten V8, with the four-speed LT95 gearbox, two-piece doors and two-tone paintwork (Limestone over Pastel Green). I have always been fond of these woofly old beasts despite them being hopelessly thirsty and not actually all that quick, especially once the camshaft lobes have worn flat and the timing chain has stretched like the elastic on an old pair of underpants. I don’t see many V8s in the workshop these days: cheap 200 and 300Tdis pretty much…

AS WE celebrate 250 issues of LRM it is only right that we feature the only person whose work has appeared in all but one of those issues. I’m talking about Ian West, of course, our talented and very funny cartoonist. His pen drawings capture the essence of Land Rover ownership with a gentle but off-the-wall humour that’s uniquely British. LRM wouldn’t be the same without him, but how come he missed one issue? And which one was it? “I missed issue number one because I didn’t even know about the magazine then,” he admits. “One Saturday in 1998 I was in town, browsing the shelves in WH Smith, when I saw a copy of Land Rover Monthly. It was the first-ever issue. I bought it and when I got…

ACCORDING TO an article in CNN Travel, plane spotting has become a more alluring hobby than ever. Why? Because there are now so many online resources to fuel the passion – aviation fanatics can track planes and share their favourite photos and experiences on dedicated forums, and there’s certainly no shortage of information on the internet. You’ve probably met one or two in your lifetime or got stuck seated next to a guy (or girl) on a plane who could tell with one glance the model of an airbus and its performance figures. But, what about airside vehicle spotters? Not as catchy, I know, but is it a hobby that’s as supported? Are there airports that grant special car parking privileges, designated spotting areas and so on for those fascinated…

THERE ARE literally thousands of ways to convert your Defender into your dream camper. Some like a good old ground tent while others will rather attach a rooftop tent to the roofrack. Those that want to be comfy might install a caravan-like interior to the longer wheelbase Defenders such as the 130 or Pulse ambulance. Each unto their own, I say. There is no right or wrong, as we all have different needs and budgets. I have just finished a six-month review of Ququq’s Defender D box camper conversion. As most of you know I have a relatively standard 1998 Defender 110 CSW. When not in use I stored the D Box in a 20-foot storage container along with other bits that don’t fit into my shed. On the few…

NESTLED IN the hills of Antrim, Northern Ireland, hides an old quarry called Ballynulto. It was here that the Northern Ireland Land Rover Club held an off-roading experience day for children and adults with special needs. Inspired by one of the club’s members, Ian McCluney, a young man with Down Syndrome, the club invited his friends and others along for the day. And with over 15 club members bringing along vehicles with varying capabilities, it was set to be an awesome day of off-roading. In typical Northern Ireland style, the run up to the day had seen the country bask in glorious sunshine, but on the day it saw rain, then torrential flooding in many parts. Fear not, said the club members, more mud means more fun. As families arrived…

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,…

The Suffolk Land Rover Owners Club are holding their annual Children in Need Driving Day to raise money for the BBC’s charity at the club's off-road site at Newbourne, east of Ipswich in Suffolk on Sunday November 18. Everyone is invited to take part in the club's fundraising activities and those attending are asked to embrace the Pudsey spirit and do your own thing. Dressing up in costume is optional but if you need a marshal recovery on the off-road course donation buckets will be available. For more information please check the club's website or Facebook page or contact them direct. slroc.uk.com…

The Great British Land Rover Show returns to the NAEC at Stoneleigh Park, Warwickshire, on Sunday November 25. At the show you will enjoy the Lancaster Insurance Land Rover Walkway, the 2.4-mile off-road course, a live Land Rover Workshop and the Land Rover-only parking area. You will also have the opportunity to see the actual Landy from Veronica Lamond children’s books. In addition, the show will have a host of trade, parts and accessory stands, together with Land Rover and 4x4 club stands. Tickets are £7.50 in advance, £12.50 on the door and the off-road course is £10. Details and how to pre-order tickets can be found on the show's website. greatbritishlrshow.com…

FOR A Land Rover that wasn’t yet registered for the UK roads, my 2.8i Defender 90 County Station Wagon managed quite a lot of travel in the British Isles. When it arrived at London Gateway on the ship from South Africa, I collected it and drove a very long first trip to the Stena Line terminal in Liverpool – to catch the ferry to Belfast. How did I manage to do this when the truck was not yet registered in the UK? The answer is a set of trade plates, which kept me legal on the English motorways and A-roads. On arrival at my home back in February, the pressures of work and general life meant that I neglected to do anything about getting the Land Rover road-legal. The first…

A FEW WEEKS ago, I paid one of my regular visits to my dad – a round trip of some 450 miles. Already planning the replacement of two doors which my wife scraped on a gate post, the last thing I needed was some bad news. The Freelander merrily bumbled down to Dorset, returning around 38 mpg as it always has done, and giving one of those finger-on-the-bottom-of-the-wheel rides which, together with the extra height, makes it a real pleasure to drive. But with the radio off, I noticed some transmission noise and, on the return journey, a slight rumble developed. There was also a transmission knock in second, when coming on and off the throttle – nothing horrendous, but definitely there. It was time for the rear driveline to…

EFFICIENT STORAGE is the difference between finding the tool you want, when you need it, or compromising and using second best. These five top chests are suitable as stand-alone storage on a workbench or for mobile use if necessary (and if they can be safely lifted when full of tools). All five have accompanying storage cupboards or trolleys in their ranges, allowing for gradual modular expansion to suit your budget and requirements. Four of our five on test are of the top-lid design, meaning they need room above when their lids are opened, and this is essential because their integral locking mechanisms are deactivated when the lids are open. Cheaper chests tend to not feature ball bearing drawer mechanisms, meaning much frustration as the weight of full drawers creates unwanted…

Another 18 Years on . . . What makes your project special? It’s a fire engine and that is more than enough for me. Plus it was on the cover of LRM issue 19 back in February 2000. That probably also counts for something – though it looks nothing now like it did all those years ago. How did you find this project? I literally did an internet search for Series fire engines. I had to scroll through pages of results before finding this. The original posting was dated April 2017 and it was early November when I found it. I joined the forum it was advertised on to ask if it was still for sale, and it was! What condition was it in when you purchased it? When I…

FORMING THE centre piece of a new-look menswear department at Selfridges’ flagship Oxford Street store, the chassis of a Defender Works V8 entered through a first floor window, where it was reassembled in front of customers by a team of five Land Rover Classic technicians over four days. The Selfridges Edition vehicle began life as a 2016 Defender 110 2.2 TDCi pick-up but the Land Rover Classic team have turned it into a 110 soft top, complete with a branded bonnet in trademark Selfridges yellow. The bodywork is finished in contrasting Bronze Green and a heritage-style folding windscreen and half-height doors complete the open-air look. Designed to show what can be achieved by the specialist craftsman, it features chassis and powertrain upgrades from the Defender Works V8 70th Edition, as…

IF YOU have done 4x4 training, a greenlaning trip or a Moroccan adventure with Ardent Off Road, then you have probably met the likeable Libby Dykes. Not only is she a guide on their trips, she is also involved in the driver training and day-to-day running of this ever-expanding 4x4 adventures and training company (formerly known as Yorkshire 4x4). We recently caught up with Libby at Carlton Towers, a Grade I listed Yorkshire manor house that also serves as the Ardent base and training venue. Tell us about your earliest Land Rover experience. My love of Land Rovers and off-roading comes from Russell, my Dad. We used to have a Series I and when I was a toddler Dad would take off the doors and roof, put it in low…

Last year BA became the first airline worldwide to introduce high-tech remote controlled devices to push back aircraft across its short-haul operation. The eco-friendly Mototok tugs, which replace the traditional diesel tugs, allow BA staff to prepare aircraft for departure more efficiently, allowing a single ramp agent to push an aircraft backwards from the gate remotely. Mototoks are an essential part of BA’s sustainability strategy, and its goal is to reduce emissions from their airside activities. If the next Land Rover Defender is offered as an all-electric option, perhaps BA might consider replacing the 90 with it.…

DUNDEE IS THE fourth-largest city in Scotland, and its history dates back to the Iron Age. During the Industrial Revolution the city grew rapidly, thanks mainly to demand for textiles. Dundee is also well-known for its marmalade and publishing houses, earning its nickname as the city of jute, jam and journalism. Ally has lived in the Tayside area for many years, and currently resides in Broughty Ferry on the eastern outskirts of the city. He is a hairdresser by trade, but recently sold his business and works part-time. Now he is semi-retired, he is concentrating on his favourite hobbies of old Land Rovers and classic cars. Apart from his Series IIA he owns a 1979 Mini Special and an early Series II Morris Minor split screen. He is also a…

The Northern Ireland Land Rover Club are planning a Forest Run event on Saturday November 24. The run will take place in the forests in and around the Ballypatrick area and all members are welcome. The drive will mostly be taking place through forestry land which can range from gentle tracks to open bog, and they will all be driven at a gentle pace and offer spectacular views of the surrounding countryside. Details can be found on the club's website or its Facebook page. landrover-club.com  facebook.com/NiLandRoverClub…

4x4 Adventure Tours are running a two-day 4x4 Tour of the Cotswolds over the weekend of December 1 – 2. This tour features a new route, but warns that it's scratchy in places so not suitable for newer vehicles. The average tour route is around 50 to 60 miles a day and usually entails six to seven hours driving. 4x4 Adventure Tours adheres to the GLASS Greenlane Code of Conduct and the Countryside code. All routes are pre-driven and checked for legal vehicular rights with no traffic regulation orders in place before each tour. The guide vehicles are fully equipped with recovery equipment, first aid essentials and we provide walkie-talkies for each vehicle. Details of this and other tours can be found on the website. 4x4adventuretours.co.uk…

LONG BEFORE I was born, my father’s life depended on the reliability of parts produced by Rover. In fact, that was quite a while before Land Rover itself was born, too. The world’s best 4x4 wasn’t even a twinkle in Maurice Wilks’ eye when Dad flew in the bombing raids of the second world war. Those bombers my father and his RAF comrades flew in relied upon parts produced by Rover and other motor manufacturers, whose factories were turned over to the war effort. Items produced by Rover included wings for Lancaster bombers and the amazing 14-cylinder Bristol Hercules radial engine that at 1300 bhp (1700 bhp in later models) was twice as powerful as the more famous Rolls-Royce Merlin engine (for which Rover also machined some components). It was…

EARLIER THIS year I’d decided to sell my Range Rover Sport, but then the idea of a trip to Brittany with a couple of friends materialised, and the question of which vehicle we should all go in was top of the agenda. For me, long-distance travels have always demanded an interesting vehicle to go in. I once travelled to Germany in a Triumph Vitesse convertible, and that journey was thoroughly exciting. Last year I was in Portugal in a rented Renault which was utterly dull and added nothing to the travel experience. So there was no way I’d be driving to Brittany in our friends’ Skoda Yeti, and I knew they wouldn’t want to travel in the back of our 110, though that would have made the journey epic. Our…

ALTHOUGH PROJECT Ninety returns to LRM this month, we’ve actually been steadily working on the vehicle since it last appeared in our September issue. Back then, summer shows, holidays and other unavoidable interruptions meant we couldn’t move the work on at a rate which would keep up with our four-weekly publishing deadline, so it was necessary to take a break. Despite getting only three days per month to work on the project in Britpart’s workshop, we have now moved well ahead of the game and we’ve plenty to report, with the exciting finale now in sight. In the previous instalment we’d fitted the new petrol V8 engine, locating it to the chassis with newly-fabricated engine mounting brackets and bolting it up to the gearbox bellhousing. Now, all of the engine…

JAGUAR LAND Rover made a pre-tax profit of £364 million in the first three months of 2018. Sounds brilliant, doesn’t it? Only nobody at Solihull is cracking open bottles of champagne, because that’s a desperate fall from grace. In the same period the previous year the company had made almost twice as much profit: £676 million. At the time of writing, production at Land Rover’s Solihull plant has been stopped for two weeks, to reduce a stockpile of new vehicles caused by a drastic decline in sales. The company blames weak sales in China, caused by the trade war with Donald Trump, and uncertainty over diesel engines, caused by clueless UK politicians. It remains to be seen whether the Discovery production line at Lode Lane will re-start once the fortnight’s…

THE LAND Rover Legends show at Bicester Heritage will be back next year. This exciting new event, which was held for the first time earlier this year, is set to return to the wonderful and evocative Bicester Heritage site on May 25 and 26, 2019. Billed as “the ultimate show for Land Rover connoisseurs, preservationists, restorers and enthusiasts”, Land Rover Legends will once again showcase the very best examples of the marque. Event organiser Richard Grafton told LRM: “We received amazing feedback from the enthusiasts, clubs and exhibitors that supported our first Legends show, and for 2019 we have introduced weekend camping on site at Bicester Heritage and evening entertainment on the Saturday, allowing Land Rover fans to make a weekend of it. We’re also delighted to be able to…

THERE IS a pattern to the ownership of older Land Rovers that I have now seen very many times, and it goes like this. New owner purchases old Land Rover and brings it to me for a service and “just give it a quick check-over and see if anything else needs doing” as the owner usually puts it. I run the vehicle into the workshop and by the time I have it up on axle stands with the wheels off, the estimated cost to make the thing roadworthy is already nudging four figures and still rising. I then have the sad task of telephoning the owner to tell him exactly what he has bought. Assuming the owner doesn’t bail out at this point, the second visit to the workshop will…

PEOPLE ARE like sheep. They follow each other, tourists especially. If you chat to a holiday maker at Edinburgh airport or train station most of them will probably be heading to Loch Ness or Isle of Skye. I once swam in Loch Ness in the middle of winter. It was after a distillery tour, of course. And yes, I have also been to the Isle of Skye, several times, but since owning a Land Rover I have changed the way I travel. In fact, I have become a bit of a lone wolf. I like open spaces and the feeling that I am the only person on the planet. Two years ago we featured the then-new Scottish North Coast 500 route. I will unashamedly say that it is without a…

THERE CANNOT be a Land Rover fan anywhere on the planet who hasn’t heard of Roger Crathorne. And yet by his own admission, in a career with Land Rover spanning over 55 years and counting, Roger never achieved a senior management position or chief engineer on any Land Rover vehicle. Which begs the question, just how did a young man who originally had no particular ambition to pursue a career in the motor industry become universally known as Mr Land Rover and achieve such a high profile? Roger takes up the story. “My father worked at Rover in the purchasing department and at that time it was fairly easy to get a job with the company if you had family or friends already there who could make a personal recommendation.…

THE HEAVENS open almost as soon as we leave the border from Costa Rica. The rainy season is eight months long in this wet and prosperous land. By the time we reach Panama City, it is dark. We cross over the impressive Bridge of the Americas that stitches the North and South American continents together. It’s clear that Panama is the wealthiest country in Central America. After fighting through some traffic we turn into our camp spot for the night outside a hostel in a grimy part of town. Waking up before dawn the next morning, we start the shipping process out of Panama with a vehicle inspection to make sure that it is not a stolen car. We make a small navigational error and miss the entrance to the…

IT’S NOT just me is it, but there is something special about watching old Series Land Rovers, especially standard-looking Series Is being driven off-road, and the Patina National RTV Trial was the perfect place to do just that. So what is the Patina National, some might ask? Well, it is the brainchild of John Carroll, well known for his passion of all things Series-related. I suspect the idea was formed like all good ideas one night, sat round a fire with friends and maybe a few beers. There are just a couple of trials for leaf-sprung Land Rovers in the UK, and the Lincolnshire Land Rover Club CCV trial is possibly the first. But the Patina National is aimed at a more gentle owner, and non-shiny, road-legal, leaf-sprung 80-, 86-…

Ardent Adventures are running a Coast to Coast UK Trek from Whitby to the Lakes, from Wednesday November 21 to Sunday 25. The adventure starts in the picturesque North Yorkshire village of Grosmont, famed for its steam railway, before it heads across the North Yorkshire moors down rocky tracks and through rivers. Beginning in Leyburn, day two continues the journey west across the Dales. Day three is its new Westmoorland route beginning in Hawes, and the final two days incorporate their tour of the Lake District, tackling rock crawls and boulders, before finishing in the village of Seascale. You can book the full trip, or choose individual days, see Ardent Offroad's website. ardentoffroad.com…

THEY SAY that moving house is one of the most stressful things in the world. I would like to add buying a Land Rover at an auction to that list. Add into the mix the fact that I bought it unseen and you have a potential recipe for disaster. It started off with an innocent call from a friend abroad. He has been buying Land Rovers for 16 years at auctions but never in the UK. I’ve helped him sell a Land Rover or two over here and as we had a few pennies in our account he wanted me to go shopping for him at a Brightwells 4x4 auction. There were about 20 Land Rovers for sale but he was only interested in a few of them: a Wolf…

MY 1984 Range Rover restoration is one I have been doing as and when I get some free time, it’s taken far longer than what I’d hoped but I’m slowly getting there. The chassis is now at a point where it’s virtually complete, with the next task being the body shell. Usually on these I’d do it the other way round: body first while it’s still on the chassis then once the body is welded up and safe to remove I’d then turn my attention to sort the chassis out. However, on this one it had a very good bodyshell and I was more than happy to remove it. After being off and stored safely in a shed for nearly a year now, the body shell was taken out and…

AT HOME in County Antrim, my Defender 90 and Discovery 2 rarely have more than three seats occupied on any given journey – even though they sport six and seven seats respectively. However, when in County Donegal, where we often have visitors as well as family, a six-seater was sometimes not sufficient and a little cramped for space. It is for these reasons that this rebuild of my Land Rover V8 took the direction of reverting to One Ten wheelbase configuration – a Land Rover with more seating capacity and more cabin space. A towing bracket was fitted to the Land Rover, as occasionally it is used to haul and launch a boat and sometimes a small trailer for garden materials and other such tasks. But the truck is used…

THERE WERE a bewildering array of options to choose from when ordering a brand-new Discovery 3 or 4. Buyers of used models don’t get that choice, as often the decision to buy a particular car comes down to condition, rather than specification. That’s one reason why the fully-loaded HSE models are the default choice in the used market. However, thanks to the way the cars are built, it is possible to retrofit a large number of optional equipment items onto these older vehicles. So, rather than trading up to a higher-spec car, if you have your heart set on a particular feature, you might be able to simply add it to your existing vehicle. There are a few specialists who are very well regarded for knowing this era of Land…