What a coincidence!
Tim buys a Range Rover that turns out to be one he fell in love with when he was just ten
We all have fond memories of our earliest sighting or ride in a Land Rover. For me it was a Range Rover Classic, obviously, and I remember two vehicles in particular from my primary school days in Norfolk.
The first was a 1970 J-reg Lincoln Green two-door Range Rover. I have spoken many times about this vehicle, it was often parked up down the end of the village as the then current owner was visiting an elderly relative there. Later, when I was 18, I was able to buy it. The second vehicle that stuck in my mind, was a 1987 D-reg Silver Range Rover.
The story begins with my mum. She had recently got a new job at a local primary school, and on her way to work was a little country garage at West Raynham, Norfolk. They often had the odd car for sale. By this point I was already pretty well into green oval badged products even though I would have only been about ten years old at the time.
One day Mum came home and told me there was a Range Rover for sale down the road at the garage. I remember trying to persuade my parents to buy it; I believe at the time Mum was also persuading Dad to get it! We took a ride out one evening and the Range Rover sat on the garage forecourt, she was a 1987 3.5 Efi V8 automatic in silver. I cannot remember how much it was, but the Range Rover must have been about 12 to 13 years old at this point.
Straight away I remember Dad being put off by the fact it was petrol. So this killed the thought of us having a Range Rover for the time being. My mum and I both badly wanted a Land Rover of some description, but Dad was still in need of convincing!
A few days later the Range Rover was gone from the garage, and as I walked out of the school gates with Mum, there sat the silver D-reg Range Rover! Sadly it did not belong to us, however. My friend’s parents who lived in the next village had bought it!
For the next year I would rush out of the school gates just to hear the thing start up and drive away. Of course, I often went round their house, so I too, used to get collected from school in the Range Rover, which worked out well as I would get my Rangie fix! Sadly my friend’s parents split up, and not so long after moved away, taking the Range Rover with them to France.
Many years later, and now living in North Yorkshire, I’m still very much into Range Rover Classics, and often thought about that Silver Range Rover wondering what happened to it, as I lost touch with my friend after they had moved. After owning several Classics I had started to realise it was probably long gone, and had rotted away as they sadly do.
As it happened my favourite colour is silver on a classic. It just sits well, all the black parts stand out, and I think it gives them a nice clean finish and doesn’t seem to date them so much either. So, one evening I was browsing on the well-known auction site, and a silver D-reg Range Rover popped up in Ross-on-wye, in Herefordshire.
I watched this vehicle online for several days, it looked fairly tidy described as being very solid, needing minimal work, other than a repaint. I bid and I won the auction, so the following day I drove down to Herefordshire from my home in North