CLASSIC TIMES
The Series I may not be ready yet but Alisdair’s still managed to get his fill of adventure with the Range Rover
Plans never work, do they? I knew my Series I project would involve a great deal of time, but I thought, by September, I’d have been driving it. Not so. You may remember a few months back I mentioned the plan was to get it to Kelmarsh show. Well, that didn’t happen, due to a wait on the front springs coming back from being refurbished. I did offer Patrick my Range Rover for the LRM stand, but he had his heart on the Series, so that was that.
Talking of my Classic, we’ve just come back from a week in Keswick, in the Lake District, where it again performed faultlessly. That car is used for the holiday each year, now clocking up a trip to the Isle of Skye, and three Lake District adventures. What is interesting is that recently I’ve become a lot less precious about using it. Last year in the Lakes, it got inched through lanes so narrow I had to fold the mirrors in to inch it between a hedge and a bus, and this year it got absolutely soaked driving in heavy rain for a few days. That is separate from taking two little people on holiday in it, neither of which spare a thought of the countless hours Dad has spent making the car so nice to be in.
You may think I’m on the verge of a coronary, but in reality, I’m totally relaxed. My family is using the car, and we’re all enjoying it together, which is the point of that vehicle for me. On returning home, streaked in road grime, it got a wash, the interior was wiped and vacuumed, and it’s back to museum exhibit condition again.
The one crisis in taking an older vehicle away, particularly to remote locations with children, is if you break down. In planning for that eventuality, I pack what I jokingly term my emergency tool kit. Basically, it is an old metal shortbread tin – complete with a Series I 88in on – inside which I fit spanners from 10-19 mm, sockets from 10-22 mm, a ratchet, extensions, a universal joint drive bar plus 8 mm and 6 mm (for hose clips), 27 mm (for wheel nuts), screwdrivers and some pliers. All that gets held firmly in place by a few rags and microfibre cloths, for either staying clean, or getting clean, should I need to use the tools.
Already in the car is a spare serpentine
drive belt, should the fitted one split, which needs a 15 mm spanner to fit. An oil and filter change (always a Genuine Parts one), final check before the trip in vital unique parts, particularly the unusual lower rad/engine hose, and you’ve done all you can to prevent serious problems.
The best bit with the tool kit is that the shortbread tin is the exact size to slot into the empty CD changer hole, under the boot-mounted subwoofer. There’s even space for a lambswool mitt, some car shampoo, my favourite Dodo Juice Supernatural Hybrid wax, and some tyre foam. Yes, I’ve been known to wash the car on holiday. You mean you don’t? How weird...
The family love being high up, looking over hedges, with plenty of room and light inside. It may be 22 years old, but the magical mix an original Range Rover offers means it’s still perfectly relevant in modern traffic. To avoid a thunderstorm and heavy traffic, we came home a night early. The big V8 kept us really pushing on in the outside lane all the way home. I used to dread driving at night in my old Porsche 911, whose lights had all the power of a candle in a jam jar. Not so the Range Rover, which has a superb light spread.
The motoring equivalent to the Forth Bridge, there’s always something that needs attention on the car, yet I love it to bits. I can’t think of anyone else I’d rather be with than my family, nor another vehicle I’d rather be in.