For the last 3 nights I have had the somewhat dubious pleasure of driving a Land Rover Defender, due to the inclement weather conditions, and a bit of snow causing chaos on the highways. Our local authorities in England, renown for being a cold and wet country, did not expect snow in winter, and as usual were caught out but the sudden drop in temperatures and a fall of between 4 and 12 inches of snow, depending on where in the county you live and whether you use a mans tape measure or a ladies one. Hardly surprising, as this is the same Government that is caught out when Christmas comes around on the 25th December every year.
Anyway, back to the main news. The Land Rover Defender is based on the original Land Rover series one, a 1947 design and has changed little since. Land Rover are the second oldest 4x4 manufacturer in the world, Jeep (allegedly) being the first. Jeep wasn't the brand name at the time of course, it was Willys who invented the "Overland" as a military vehicle for use by the US Army as a General Purpose (GP) utility vehicle, and it was the GI's who nickname it the Jeep. Ironically many used in WW2 were made by FORD under licence, as Willys couldn't make them quick enough. Willys would later be bought out by the Chrysler Corporation, and the JEEP brand was officially born.
Meanwhile in the immediate post war years just after peace had broken out in the UK, a certain Maurice Wilkes, who just happened to be the Cheif Designer at Rover, bought a military surplus Jeep for use on his farm in Anglesey. After seeing it's useful potential on the farm he decided he could build something similar, and the LAND ROVER was born. Using a steel chassis but aluminium body panels, not to save weight, but because steel was in short supply he stuffed a Rover engine up front and built a prototype in 1947. A further 48 prototypes followed for appraisal during which he quickly realised that farmers couldn't get enough of them. They loved the idea of a car they could pull a plough with, take hay into the hill pastures then hose down and take the family to church in on Sunday. A legend was born, full production followed and eventually Land Rover begat Range Rover and finally young mums had a vehicle capable of taking toddlers to nursery schools in leafy urban Surrey.
The Range Rover was born in 1968, and developed or rather evolved over the years into the bling encrusted, tinted windowed chrome behemoth now used by Puff Daddy lookalikes to sell drugs on council housing estates. Meanwhile the forces of motoring evolution seemingly gave up on the series Land Rover. Oh for sure, the series one gave way to the almost identical series 2, only really distinguished because the headlights were moved to where they could be seen by other road users, and to a position where they could light the road ahead. And the engines got a little bit bigger over the years, and various variants were produced with long, short, lightweight, 6 wheel drive, amphibious, desert, ambulance and forward control being just a few of the options. In fact so many variations have been made that in truth no-one owns a standard Land Rover. They have probably never built one. In theory they probably make one, but the haphazard approach to assembly (and I'll come back to this later) means they are all unique.
Now to upset real Land Rover aficionados. The Defender is slow, agricultural, handles badly, has awful brakes, poor performance and drinks more than Oliver Reed, George Best and Paul Gasgoine on a bender. Some say it is called the Defender because it is the darling of the British Army, a proud defender of our nation, exemplary in it's military service. This may be so. It is certainly not a footballing reference, but if it were it would be inaccurate even then. It's no centre forward, definitely not a striker, and if my experience is anything to go by not a Defender either. It is in fact the goalkeeper. As a kid, teams were picked by the two Games Masters favorites, and I stood in the line with others to get picked. I was always last alongside the kid with glasses as thick as milk bottle bottoms, who had a note from his mum excusing him from sports but allowed him to play non competitive chess. Consequently, I would be reluctantly picked after him and always, but always ended up in goal. My team would usually lose by around 7 goals to nil. I was not good at sports and neither is the Land Rover Goalkeeper - sorry Defender. In 1947 farmers were wowed by it's rugged looks and performance, and it's clever 4 wheel drive system. But then they would also have been impressed by electricity, running water and those new fangled telephones. Some rural farmers would have been impressed with the idea of a horseless carriage in the first place. For them it was almost witchcraft.
So wind the clock on almost 63 years and what do we have sitting in the space where my Volvo normally sits? Essentially the very same Land Rover. And it looks good, except that it has clearly been rushed out of stores when the snow fell, and isn't kitted out yet. Land Rover have done their bit, with a full length roof rack and manually directional spot lamps on all four corners, and in typical Land Rover shoddy build quality style they have failed to connect the alarm system to the central locking. Or maybe it didn't have any such creature comforts - it certainly didn't have anything else, except a handy winch on the front. Our workshop had nailed a couple of blue lights on the roof and slapped some battenburg chequers on the sides, although the blue lights were on loose wiring with a plug to go in the cigarette lighter socket, and there was no siren. Or Police radio. Or any radio for that matter. At first I was dubious that the "60" registration plate related to 2010, I thought it might be "60" for 1960, but the odometer (LCD backlit) seemed to confirm this was a new model.
Climbing in to the Defender causes it's own problems with a stab vest and utility belt on, but adjusting the seat reduced the task from painfully impossible to just grossly uncomfortable. The seats are of course fully adjustable in a 1950's sort of way. They go forward and backward, although neither position gives any advantage, The cabin is so tight that if you sit forward your knees will prevent the steering wheel being used, whilst if you go backwards the B post obstructs your side view. In theory the seat has a reclining mechanism, but then anyone in the back complains that you have cut off their air supply.
Conventionally the drivers seat is placed behind the steering wheel. Not so in the Land Rover, It is offset to the left, and you sit at an angle to it so that your right elbow is in contact with the window. The pedals meanwhile are off to the right. This leads to a most interesting driving position, which almost had been calling for a no win no fee injury lawyer before I even got started. But then that wasn't likely, as the ignition switch had been cunningly hidden. I eventually located it on the left side of the steering column, where trial and error eventually got the key in place, not easy operating left handed, and with the key operating the wrong way from what one would expect the engine eventually roared into life. Next to test all the lights etc - I have driven Land Rovers before and have knowledge of their LUCAS electrical systems (LUCAS, the Prince of Darkness, being an Acronym for Loose, Usually Corroded, Always Sparking) There was a moment of pure nostalgia as I recognised the switchgear as being part Austin Maestro and mostly Morris Marina. The flashers flashed, the horn horn, the wipers wipe and the headlight switch couldn't be found. Much fumbling in the dark commenced (reminding me of another experience in a Morris Marina, but let's not go there) and eventually a sort of elongated toggle switch was identified hiding in front of the ignition switch on the side of the steering column cover. I was later to discover that with the lights on it is impossible to operate the ignition switch. This presumably is a safety feature, to prevent you switching the engine off and leaving the lights on - preventing a flat battery. Clever thinking in the 1940's I suppose.
Having started the engine I checked through the ergonomic scatter gun approach to the remaining switchgear. It seems that stuff is thrown at the dashboard, and wherever it lands it is screwed down and wired in.
I will confess that the last Land Rover I drove had the red and yellow topped levers to lock the differential and change to low ratio, so this one was an improvement with a small lever the size of a normal gearstick to combine both functions. The gearstick itself looked like it could double as a tyre wrench, and so long that the passenger was nearer to change some of the gears than the driver was.
Having found a gear it was time to move off, but where in the name of all that is holy is the handbrake? The Volvo has an electrically operated handbrake, with a switch on the dash. Had Land Rover fitted something similar? And if so, where was the switch amongst the retro cluttered dash? And what was the awkward lump of metal threatening to bruise my left ankle....... aha a handbrake lever, mounted on the side of the transmission tunnel and right down low almost amongst the pedals. And which operates away from you, such that you have to lean down to release it, bumping your head against the steering wheel in the process.
And on to the driving experience itself. In the days before Lesbian sex, and airplane crashes Emmerdale used to have a Farm, not just in the title, but an actual plot of land, where Jack and Joe Sugden used to drive around in a Lad Rover, always with the window wound down, and Joe, always used to hook his hand round on the outside of the door to open it using the external handle from inside. I used to wonder why. Was it some sort of Yorkshire Young Farmers Youth Cool thing? No. It turns out that it is physically impossible to turn right unless the drivers window is open. So I imagine young Joe was not cool, but bloody cold, driving around in rural North Yorkshire, as the heater is less than effective. And the whole thing with the door opening? Same reason. The cabin is so cramped that your right leg is pressed up against the door and it it impossible to operate either the window winder or the door release. Many a novice Land Rover pilot must have become trapped on lonely moorlands because he failed to wind the window down before closing the door. now just to make it clear I am neither John Cleese nor Jeremey Clarkson, although I am a shade over 6 foot. Nor am I of Bernard Manning proportions, although I am arguably mildly overweight, but certainly not bordering on obese. It would be reasonable to expect that I would be able to get a comfortable driving position. My left ankle is painfully in contact with the handbrake, my left arm needs to be around a foot longer to operate the handbrake comfortable, whilst my right knee is in contact with the door panel and my right arm could do with several more elbows so I can turn the wheel without the window having to be open. I presume that in the immediate post war years the demographic would have been different. Obviously people were shorter and slimmer due to rationing, and I daresay a fair proportion returning from the war had less arms and legs and would have fitted easier. But is it too much to ask that they change the car to the modern driver? I was in fear of crashing because even a minor impact was likely to leave me trapped in the drivers seat, but I needn't have worried. In the event it didn't need a crash, when I later tried to get out I was trapped anyway, by a combination of my stab vest, utility belt cramp and repetitive strain fatigue.
A minor impact seemed inevitable at some point because the steering wheel has little or no effect on what the road wheels do even on a dry road, never mind on ice. To experience the sensation of steering a Land Rover you need a packet of Birds instant custard, a glass jug and a wooden spoon. Mix up the custard, then without holding the jug stir it with the wooden spoon. Eventually the glass jug begins to turn as well, as the friction between the custard and the sides of the jug build up. This is almost, but not quite exactly how the steering on the Land Rover must work. By the time the message has got to the wheels that you have turned the steering wheel you have turned it back the other way.
On the road the Land Rover makes even less sense. This one has a six speed gearbox (arguably 12 with the low ratio set up) but only three were needed because at anything greater than 50 mph it becomes frighteningly unstable. And that was on the cleared and gritted roads. On taking to the side streets the four wheel drive offered a surefootedness that the road tyres denied. Frozen rutted tracks meant that whilst the Landrover could go anywhere it simply did go anywhere. Often sideways. Holding it in first gear on tickover meant it made very safe and steady progress, but with the impression that the frost was overtaking me. Putting any revs on at all causes the Diesel engine to chug and surge, making for a very jerky and rough ride - my passenger was complaining of whiplash. Dropping into second causes the car to begin to run away, the engine suddenly becomes all eager, and you are fighting for control again. Sadly this eagerness disappears when you hit the tarmac again. I don't know how many horsepowers the Landrover has, but it often felt and sounded like whilst they were all there, they weren't necessarily all pulling in the same direction. At speed, changing gear caused the engine to make a different noise, but that was all it did. On a deserted snow packed car park however i was able to unlease the full potential of that asthmatic diesel engine with a 3 second powerslide with all four wheels spinning and shouting "POWER!" in my best Jeremey Clarkson impression. Had I had the advantage of a stop motion video camera it would have looked bloody impressive. As it was it probably looked slightly ridiculous given that I was doing no more than 5 miles per hour. But it did prove that under all the noise the engine was capable of sending power to the axles, even if you did need an arctic continent to make use of it.
And talking of noises - it was like having the BBC radiophonic workshop in the back. On a wet and gritted road it sounded like someone was using a power shower in the back, whilst on snow and ice it produced a sound akin to towing a large roll of bacofoil dragging along behind us. This was intermittently broken by the sound of being peppered with air pellets from a rapid fire repeating air rifle. The diesel engine meant that conversation, and with all this going on there was a lot to talk about, had to be conducted at a mild shout.
My passenger of course did not believe that this driving experience could be as bad as I was making out - right up until he took over later in the shift, when after several stalls i pointed out that he was using the brake pedal as the throttle and that the accelarator pedal was several inches to the right. How I laughed as he banged his elbows and knees. My head hurt I laughed so much. He who laughs last drove first it seems.
But, and this is a big but, for all it's short comings, and there are many, the Landrover refused to be beaten. For towing other cars, vans, 4 x 4's and houses out of snowy holes and rutted tracks it was unbeatable. Over a challenging 10 hour route that would have sent the Top Gear team home with their tailpipes between their tyres, the plucky Brit ploughed on through everything the weather could throw at it. Japanese pretenders, German Upstarts, and Korean wannabees fell by the wayside, victims of modern frivolities like ABS and traction stability control. Even the Landys spiritual father, the Jeep was espied abandoned at one point. Our own BMW X5's faltered on the snowpacked streets, despite the Germans having raped Landrover, stolen the technology and sold the smoking remnants to the Indians they couldn't match that 65 year old classic icon. It just refused to give up.
And as much as I hated the experience I fell in love with the Land Rover too. I know it will cripple me both emotionally, physically and financially, but I want one so much it hurts.
I don't normally write my blogs this long, but I thought it might catch attention as the worlds longest wanted used Land Rover ad.
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