Patrick Parsons wrote: ".... memories from the list of a Series owner's
experience with keys .......a filing cabinet key blank ....... fits in the
(Land Rover) door lock (and) the ignition too.... "
Good one, Patrick. Urban myths and urban realities.
Because we're incurable Alfa/Riley/Mini/Land Rover maniacs we have a swag of
spare keys most of which, save the Alfa, are interchangeable. The Series Land
Rover's disdain of pretentious door and ignition locking keys might be amusing
to the novice with its different keys for driver's, rear door or tail gate,
ignition, fuel fillers, bonnet/hood, and alarm (yep, Solihull had a movement
alarm keyed at the back for its exports to the 'dangerous' colonies.
One simple off road trip into the bush swiftly demonstrates the logic of this
approach. They're a sop to the paranoia of urban travelers.
Lose a key in the Outback and you can get back into or start your Series Land
Rover, usually with a piece of fencing wire, tin foil and a dental brace.
Not so most other look-alike jellybean 4WDS.
Because of my work I have on occasion to take a lesser 4WD out into the arid
zone or the jungle. It happened recently that I was driving a Musso (Mercedes
licenced) 4WD through a few thousand klicks of gibber rock and parallel sand
dune desert. Days of up and down 4WD-ing searching for a clay pan to make
speed. Then came the inevitable bogging and retrieval. Hours of getting out of
the vehicle to throw down a sand anchor, winch forward over sand ladders,
repack, move forward. After repeating this exercise two score and ten times
and the shiny not very old Musso with its pitiably low clearance - compared
with a Series Rover - began to shake and rattle.
That's when it happened.
I was out of the vehicle, sun blazing through a filter of salt and talcum
powder sand and bulldust, and had thrown the sand anchor, attached the winch
cable, returned to the driver's door - but found it locked solid, the large
plastic-coated ignition-and-door key with its microwave remote opener swinging
from the dash inside the windows-up airconditioned 4WD wagon.
The Musso was a tin can marvel of modern ugly design. There was no easy way
in. Its automatic door locking had been a 'superb' design feature thought up
by the brilliant German auto Meisters who design cars for hairdressers and
terrorists. It's manufacture had been executed obediently by the Korean
factory.
A technological marvel of regulatory mind-sapping policing. But useless, and
like the much touted air bags and anti-lock-braking systems, potentially
dangerous in a working 4WD.
So, who needs keys? I'm happier without them. Besides, who'd want to steal one
of our battered, 'old-looking' and unfashionable Series Land Rovers?
Theodore Ted
apg@bigfoot.com.au
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