DEFENDER SUPERHERO
Will Hedrick is the attorney who took on America’s federal government and won, and in doing so saved a whole heap of Defenders
There is a song by The Clash called I Fought The Law. The one line that we all know from that classic goes: I fought the law and the law won. No one knows or cares about what comes before or after that line, which is often the case with a popular song. And if ever you were to write a song about the life of American attorney Will Hedrick then you could use that iconic line but change it slightly to: Will fought the law and the Defenders won.
I was first told about Will by LRM stalwart Trevor Cuthbert. Will is not just any old attorney; the man is in love with Land Rovers and his website describes him as an “Attorney and Legal Counsel Specializing in Automotive Import Law and Seizure and Forfeiture Defense”. So, if you are having problems moving a vehicle from one country to another, or the authorities have seized your beloved Land Rover, then Will is your man. He is at his happiest when helping other people; even more so if it involves Land Rovers.
I’m fortunate enough to hitch a ride in Will’s bright yellow 1992 Defender 90 as we make our way to the village next up from mine. Will is in the UK on business – saving the world, one Defender at a time. Normally if he has any spare time while here, he races off to Solihull or Eastnor to take in some original Land Rover action.
Our plan is to have dinner at a pub and chat about Land Rovers and American law. Will first hit the Land Rover headlines when he represented 33 US owners of imported Defenders in the case of United States versus Land Rover vehicles. How cool does that sound? He probably could’ve earned over half a million dollars in legal fees for his efforts but he did not charge his clients a single penny. Will won the case and so did the owners he represented, as they all got their Defenders back.
So popular with his clients that a massive celebratory party was held in North Carolina, where Will hails from, and as a thanks, they handed him the keys to a Defender. I’m keen to know more and, with pint in hand, I get down to the interview.
What is the law in the US regarding the importation of Defenders?
The first thing is that they must obviously be older than 25 years old and you must have proof of this. The one thing that will ruin export eligibility to the US is replacing the chassis. If you fitted a galvanised replacement, or even galvanised the original, you cannot legally export it to the US. It also has to have the original or equivalent engine. Last but not least, it must be in its original configuration unless it was converted by Land Rover or one of their official suppliers.
So are you telling me that all the new-looking Defenders in the US comply with the above?
There are illegal Defenders in the US right now. I know of three 2016 Heritage Limited Edition Defenders. I don’t advocate that sort of thing at all. If you are lucky enough to somehow get one through you are no better than someone who smuggles a bag of cocaine, it’s still illegal. It now subjects all people who are trying to legitimately import vehicles to scrutiny. I don’t like it when the authorities give my clients a hard time when they have done nothing wrong.
I’ve got to ask: what happened in the historic case United States vs Land Rovers vehicles?
I was contacted by Darren Smith one evening as his vehicle had been misidentified by authorities as a 2000 model. There was nothing about his truck that looked new. The chassis and bulkhead were rusted, it had split doors, it was a 1983 truck, though it did have a Tdi engine. I said that I would represent him.
Land Rover people have this mentality of helping each other out, especially if someone is stuck or broken down on a trail. That is how I looked at this. I had the legal tools in my box to help Darren. Later I decided that if I was going to do it for Darren, I might as well do it for all the
“I don’t like it when the authorities give my clients a hard time when they have done nothing wrong”
other owners too. I thought that maybe one or two would contact me but in the end I represented 33 owners.
Why were the Defender’s confiscated?
The claim was that they did not conform to Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Department of Transportation (DOT) specifications, nor did they have the permits for exemption. They also claimed that 25 years had not passed since the Defenders in question rolled off the production line.
This was a very narrow interpretation of the law. I argued for a different interpretation. I had to go through the legislative history behind the Automotive Act of 1988, which is over 1000 pages long. When I got to page 900 or so I found a definition of model year which said that it is defined by a certain time period either side of the calendar year, so a vehicle claimed as a 1987 model technically could’ve been built in 1988 or 1986. I bought this to the attention of the assistant US Attorney.
What sort of tactics did you use?
During the case I tried to inspect all of the vehicles but they were spread out at over 20 locations all around the country. This did not make it economically feasible for my clients to fly me out to see them. I told the government that as the case was in North Carolina I thought it was their responsibility to get the vehicles here. I learnt this tactic at law school: you try and make the case expensive for those you are up against. Getting all the Defenders here would cost them over $100,000 for just one way.
How did it all end?
The fed government requested a settlement conference. At this conference, one of my clients, Jennifer Brinkley, managed to establish a good rapport with the judge. She did this by telling the judge about the armed federal agents who came to fetch her Defender in the middle of the night. She also explained to him why her Defender was special to her; finally she shared with him her Defender experiences in Africa.
The judge then told her that he had learnt to drive in a Series II 109 station wagon. I was stunned. He then went on to tell us how he and his dad once flew to Washington to buy an 88in before driving it back to North Carolina. As a result of that the judge went to speak to the government’s legal people. I knew at that stage that it was over and that they would rule in our favour. The only thing that I did not want is for my clients to fork out any cash to get their Defenders back.
How do you win a case of that magnitude? Was there a key moment that you remember?
I had some of my greatest epiphanies in the middle of the night while up and working. At the time I was
working for the state of North Carolina so it was not uncommon to do a full day at the office and then come home, stay up all night working on the case before going to work the next day.
I remember one night going over some government evidence which was the electronic warranty records for all of the seized vehicles. I thought them to be odd as they were for vehicles that had been built in the 1980s. It did not make sense. I must’ve looked at them dozens of times. One morning at around 2.00 am I noticed the small print at the bottom with the date on; the documents had been created after the vehicles had been seized. We work on what is called a business document rule, which basically means that in order for whatever the documents states to be admissible, it has to have been created concurrently with the event. This was not the case and that made me realise they were not admissible. I immediately filed a motion to have them thrown out.
Do you realise that you singlehandedly influenced the prices of Defenders worldwide?
I have never thought of it that way.
If I am successful with my current case, and 200Tdi engines are allowed in the US, then I will open up the market to vehicles that were previously not allowed.
Are things a whole lot clearer now since the historic ruling then?
US customs are a lot more stringent into what they are letting into the US. If you are now importing a Defender into America then it will be subject to intense scrutiny and the onus is on you to prove it is what you say it is. The problem in the US is that often these are new Defender or Land Rover owners. They don’t know what is allowed or not, and they have to rely on others. There are people in the UK and elsewhere who think they know what the law is, but actually they don’t.
Do you think the US law regarding Defenders is fair? You can drive something in the UK or Europe but not in the US, for example.
The law was created to exclude vehicles for safety reasons and I think that the law was created in the hope that people would import things like Merc SL Gull Wings or BMW 507s to put into museums or store. No one ever considered that Land Rover fans would buy something that they planned on driving every day. So the rule never stopped it from happening, it only delayed it by 25 years. Currently I think we have about 100 Defenders arriving in the US every week. We have more arriving now than when Land Rover were bringing them into the country in the 1990s.
Defender demand in the US is high then?
They don’t make Defenders any more so their numbers are finite. NAS Defenders make up less than one per cent of the Defender numbers produced. That means the US market was deprived. I can’t see demand or prices going down in the US market. If a NAS Defender is burnt to a crisp in the US the title is still worth $15,000.
Land Rover US did not make tons of money by selling Defenders. I think that future Defender production should come out of the advertising budget because they are big billboards for the brand. People buy a Range Rover because it is driveable, but in their minds they are driving a Defender. It’s a substitute of sorts.
Did winning the case change your life?
I’m grateful for it as it has had a huge impact on my life. I gave up my job working for the state and now I am doing this full time. My wife had a feeling that something
“I like driving Defenders. Twice I’ve driven across the US in one”
good would come out of it. I continue to learn every day. I do the best that I can and I went from zero clients to more than I can keep up with.
Why Land Rovers?
The first time I saw a Land Rover I was in high school. One of the senior student’s folks bought him a 1994 Defender 90. I had never seen one before and once I figured out where he lived I had to go and find out more about it.
At the time Land Rover were struggling to sell the Defender to the US market. I did not buy my first Land Rover until 1999. I saw it on the LRX website and the seller – from Albuquerque in New Mexico – wanted $19,500 for it, which was unheard of in those days for a Defender in the US. I flew out there with a cheque in my hand. He picked me up in the red Defender and I fell in love with it straight away. I drove it 1200 miles all the way home only stopping for gas and food. Two weeks later the transfer case blew up but I kept it all the way through college.
Did you ever work for Land Rover?
After graduating with an English degree from college in 2001, I went to work in the sales department of a Land Rover dealership in Asheville, North Carolina. At the time I was lucky enough to work for Deb Holt from Leeds in the UK, and received really good training from her. I was not a hard closing sales type but rather someone who was in love with the product and had total faith in what they could do. I never ever thought that it was necessary to put other brands down. After a few years I changed dealerships, but then after six months I realised that this was not what I wanted to do and went to law school.
Did you have any interesting experiences working at dealerships?
I sold more Defenders, used ones, of course, than any other salesman in my time at the dealerships. Our dealer principal Dr Jack Frasher kept buying them and he owned the last NAS Defender 90 station wagon limited edition number 300 of 300. It was the last Defender imported by Land Rover North America into the US. He kept it in storage and it had only done about 500 miles.
In 2003 Land Rover North America arrived at the SEMA show in Vegas with a Defender 110 300Tdi. It had a NAS Defender external cage and roof rack. At the time Land Rover was exploring the idea of bringing CKD Defenders into the US. This announcement made, Dr Frasher give us permission to put his number 300 of 300 on the market and we quickly sold it. The Ford attorneys put a stop to the CKD Defender project in the US due to liability issues. So I had the dubious honour of selling the last brand-new Defender in the US.
Do you remember your first trip to Solihull, the home of Land Rover?
When I graduated from college in 2001 my dad took my brother and I on a trip to Europe. Obviously a Solihull factory tour was on the agenda but it was a Bank Holiday on the day we showed up and it was closed.
Somehow we ended up at the back gate, staring at the Land Rovers waiting to be shipped off. A guard in a five-door Defender felt sorry for us and proceeded to give us a four-hour tour of the factory. I saw everything and walked down all the assembly lines. I had to sign my name in the LRE visitors book and I remember it was only two pages away from where Prince Charles signed. The last time I was at LRE I checked and it is still there. It was a surreal experience.
Explain to us the uniqueness of the US Defender market.
People in America like having what they can’t have, if that makes sense. If they could have as many Defenders as they wanted, then they would want something else. That is part of the attraction. The irony of all this is when Land Rover North America was selling old Defenders, the 110s went quickly but they had a hard time with the 90s. Even in 1997, which was the last model year, they struggled. The instant they stopped selling them they became popular.
Defenders are not for everyone though.
They are not glamorous vehicles. Preparing a novice Defender owner on what it takes to own one takes time. What I learnt early on is that the Defender is like a dog. You have to give it love, feed it, take it to be checked up every now and again, and exercise it.
They don’t like to sit, you have to do preventative maintenance or else it will let you down one day but if you do all the above things it will love you until the day you die.
I like driving Defenders and have driven across the US twice in one. I don’t even mind getting wet. It’s part of the fun. I like that about the vehicle.
Many thanks to Turvey House for the use of their lovely property for our photo shoot. For more details see www.turveyhouse.co.uk.