LRO: Why do we own Land Rovers?

From: Mark Pilkington (mark@skywagons.com)
Date: Wed Apr 11 2001 - 15:39:53 EDT

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    Very quiet this morning?
    I have been thinking about why I like Land Rovers. They are not very fast
    and not very quiet and a good one is worth more than my Range Rover! I do
    not really know specifically, but I think it might be because of the
    following. For me, I think that it is the association with the past. They
    all smell the same as when I was young and that reminds me of days of fun
    and shooting in Scotland. They are parked all over Britain. They are in the
    Market towns of the south, they are in London outside someone's flat. You'll
    find then in every farmyard, You'll see them towing horse boxes to hunt
    meets and pony club events. The police used to use them, the Army still
    does. They are so common in Britain, that they are part of the fabric of the
    rural scene. They are quaint and unique and are actually very good off-road.
    I have used an old Series IIa diesel as an everyday driver in England and I
    trained people to drive Army Lightweights at corporate events at Gaydon
    where the Factory tests the Landrovers. There is something very familiar
    about them. Everything is always the same. For me, they are an island of
    Britishness with all their quirks in a sea of mass produced mediocrity.
    Everyone who comes for a ride in whichever land Rover I have always says
    that it is very interesting and asks questions about it. Even if they have
    never seen one before in real life, they have seen one on TV and have heard
    of them. Go anywhere in the world and there they are, still battling on
    after all these years. I learned to drive in an Old Series Landrover. I
    steered it from my Dad's knee aged 6 and "soloed" it a few years later. My
    First employer on farm in Scotland at aged 17 had a series I. All through
    my life there has been a Landrover there, different year, different model,
    different color, different use, but always familiar. Now here in the USA I
    still have them and they are the same. It must be the memories that makes me
    like them. I look at a Freelander or a Defender and see nothing. They are
    good machines, but the character has gone. I have no association with them.
    Range Rovers reach far enough back to still be associated with Home and my
    misspent youth. The first one was built when I was 6 years old. I remember
    the first time I saw a four door model. The "new four door Range Rover"!! It
    was in a school friend of my sister's, father's garage with an Austin
    Healey, just outside Oxford. I opened the rear door. I was young and easily
    impressed!
    That's it really, in nutshell I use them as time machines to get back to
    where things were simpler.
    Mark Pilkington
    1967 SWB Series IIA V8.
    1990 "four door" Range Rover.



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