20 October 2016
Fading Icons: No More A’Roving?
A lament for the Landy.
by J R Thomas
It may seem a little strange to nominate Land Rover as a “Fading Icon” in our occasional series. Many readers may feel that every second car on the road is a Land Rover, towering monster cars with blacked out windows, dominating the traffic. But to the true aficionado, those leather finished high gloss electronic battleships of the road are not Land Rovers at all, even if their roots are founded in the Solihull factory where Land Rover began after the Second World War.
A Land Rover is a Series I, II, or III, or Defender, a simple tough vehicle, basic and spartan and not terribly comfortable. You might well decide to drive from London to Kampala in one, but probably not from London to Cambridge. It is the ultimate go-almost-anywhere auto; when all else fails, the Landy can still do it, growling away with more gear than a Chelsea fashionista, and able to cross the deepest ruts, the steepest slopes, and the widest puddles. Only a motorway can defeat it…
Land Rover began, it is recounted in Solihull, on a farm in Anglesey, North Wales. The Wilks brothers, a couple of gifted engineers who ran the Rover Car Company, were searching for a business idea in the barren years of the late 1940’s. Maurice had an ex-USA army jeep on the family farm and wondered if Rover could build a better jeep. He sketched out an idea on a beach with a stick; within months production began. Four-wheel drive, high ground clearance, an ability to operate agricultural machinery were all key, as was the steel chassis and aluminium body-work to give both strength and lightness. The British Army soon took it up – indeed Land Rover built a special army variant that was even more stripped to basics than its commercial sister so it could be lifted by helicopter – and soon there were long wheel base variants, ambulances, fire engines, Dormobile sleeper versions.
And for sixty eight years nothing much changed – the basic model got a big bigger; after forty years Land Rover got around to improving the ride quality by replacing leaf springs with coil springs (just as the rest of the car world began to move to air and liquid suspension). The seats got better, though not much; and the health and safety mob finally forced Land Rover to have all forward facing seats, cutting the capacity from twelve large blokes (very friendly blokes they had to be, it is true) to seven. It is said that some seventy per cent of Land Rovers built are still in existence – a glimpse round the back of many farm buildings will suggest that “in existence” might be a broad term – but given the number of specialist restorers round the country, even the most unlikely lichened vehicle may well be back on the road one day. It is, incidentally, a myth that Land Rovers do not rust – under the aluminium body-work all sorts of nasty things can occur to the steel chassis, including some strange chemical reactions where aluminium meets steel…
In 1970 the Range Rover first appeared – a variant on the Land Rover designed so that the farmer could take his wife out in it, so it was said. It too was a basic vehicle, albeit faster and more comfortable, with a rubber floor that could be hosed down after a hard day carrying pigs, so that treasured wife could avoid soiling her high heels. But the Range Rover was to become the cuckoo in the nest; it grew and varied and multiplied and eventually became one of the most successful luxury brands in the world. The Wilks brothers would have been truly astonished at what their automobile midwifery skills eventually produced.
Then in 2015 came the end for the “proper” Land Rover (by now called the “Land Rover Defender”, always a slightly absurd sounding name to Landy fans – Land Rover means Land Rover, and needs no other nomenclature). Health and safety rules round the world made it impossible for Land Rover to comply with modern crash and pedestrian legislation, and production costs were soaring, reflecting the hand-built nature of the beast – in the last year of production Land Rovers were being built by 500 men and two robots (the latter welding panels together). In the other half of the same building the latest generation Land Rover Discovery was being built by five men – who were there to attend to the needs of an army of robots who did all the assembly. Land Rover announced production would cease, and that no replacement was in sight.
Your correspondent had the honour of a guided tour of the factory in July 2015 to see Landy’s being built by a group of employees who radiated pride in the vehicles they were building. Eighty five per cent of the vehicles coming off the line were left hand drive – a major contribution to Britain’s export earnings. It was exciting to hear a new one start up for the first time, and difficult not to cheer as it drove off the line and into the preparation shop, ready to proceed to a proud new owner.
So the Land Rover was gone, something seemingly fixed and immutable, yet now never to wear a ‘66 number plate. It will be a long time before they are gone from sight altogether – farmers will for years block the roads as they peer over neighbours’ hedges from the elevated driving position, the British Army will keep them on tour with much mechanical ingenuity, twelve friendly blokes in tweed will somehow squeeze into one with six Labradors and a dozen spaniels to drive across a northern moor, and in draughty tin-clad barns men with basic tools will repair yet another seemingly hopeless case.
It is not quite true to say that there is no substitute – there are a couple of Japanese-built trucks models which have the same remarkable ability to cross impassable terrain, but none with the same seating capacity or social acceptability in any situation. Modern vehicles have too much technology, are too dependent on electronics which might object to being dragged through muddy water, and averse to banging with hammers to get them going again. So Land Rovers will just have to be kept running somehow. A friend of the writer had his 1970 Series II rebuilt by a Rolls Royce restorer, just as it came out of the Solihull factory. It cost more than he could have bought a Rolls for, but no Rolls can go where that olive green beauty can get.
And into the growing gap in the market steps an unlikely provider of Land Rover restoration services. Land Rover Ltd, of Solihull. Perhaps those bureaucrats at the top have hearts, perhaps they sense a profitable gap in the market, perhaps the tears of those tour participants in the final production year have moved them. But for reasons we can only guess, Land Rover have announced that they are now actively buying Series 1 Land Rovers (those built between 1948 and 1958)and will rebuild them as new for sale to those whose lives just a few months ago seemed bereft for ever. They will not be cheap – but given that they should be good for another 68 years of life, what matters money? Sometimes a black sky cracks open to reveal a shaft of brilliant sunshine – and as Landy owners bounce once more through mud and ruts, they may well thank the great car maker above that this particular icon is suddenly shining bright again.
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