Kentish Express Ashford & District
Land Rover from African epic trek rediscovered
The Land Rover of photojournalist George Rodger was found in a scrapyard in Australia. The discovery was reported in Land Rover Owner International Magazine 1 vehicle in 1957.
The expedition for Magnum Photos, the photographic agency which he established in 1947, revealed pictures of tribes and cultures across Africa.
He died in 1995, and was most famous for being part of the British Army Film and Photographic Unit which first revealed the horrors of the Bergen Belsen concentration camp after the Nazi holocaust during the Second World War.
His son Jonathan and his wife Jinx still live in Smarden, where they learned from Land Rover Owners’ International magazine that the vehicle named Mzuri had been found by David and Janelle D’Arcy.
Mr Rodger said: “It’s quite extraordinary that it has been found, as the whole thing had been forgotten about until somebody fastidiously found the wreck of it.
“The vehicle still has all the modifications that my father put in it intact, and the condition is really quite exceptional. There is a lot of interest in the original Land Rover Defenders.
“When I was young I went with him on quite a few expeditions and assignments and I look after his archive, so I know all his pictures.
“Everybody has asked me if I want to get it back, and it would be nice to see it, but it’s in good hands now and the new owners say they want to restore it.”
George Rodger returned to Kent and in 1959 he sold the vehicle to an owner in Cumbria, who Mr Rodger believes took it on an expedition through the Himalayas to Indonesia.
It was presumed lost for over 30 years until Mr and Mrs D’Arcy, who run Land Rover Heaven in New South Wales, found it this summer.
Mr D’Arcy told the Land Rover Owners’ magazine: “It was absolutely mindblowing when we realised what we’d found.”
While Mrs D’Arcy said: “We feel very privileged to be looking after it now.”