Driving it home
Alisdair Cusick prepares himself for the first drive in his Series I after a year-long restoration
In the mid 1980s, if you bought a new Range Rover, one of the things it came with was a cassette tape. Called Driving it Home it was intended for you to play after collecting the car, on your way home. A silk-voiced gentleman speaking the Queen’s English talked you through all the features of the vehicle in turn, how to operate them, how great your taste was, and probably let you know you had not just left for home, but in more ways than one, had arrived. I had a copy as a young boy and listened to it again and again. Years later, I eventually passed it on to historian James Taylor for his archive.
For a car enthusiast driving any car for the first time is always an event. New smells, new sensations, and lots of learning as you make your first memories with the car. Buying a car means you often drive it on the day you first see it, but as usual, I’m different. I’m about to drive a car I’ve spent months touching every nut, bolt and crevice on. You’ll read next month about the final chapter in my Series I, but for now, it is all anticipation and excitement.
I’m writing this on January 15 and tomorrow is going to be a very special day indeed, for exactly a year to the day I collected the car, I’m going to drive it on the road for the first time after completing the work on it. I won’t have an exciting cassette tape to play (not least because it doesn’t have speakers), but I will have someone just as entertaining for company, my good friend James Holmes. He’s the workshop wizard who has been with me every step of the way, so there’s no way I’d do it without him experiencing the moment too. It has also been nice to keep in touch with the previous owner. He’s an LRM reader, so sees the features, but it is fun to share what we’ve found, or have been doing.
However, it won’t be first time I’ve been out in the car. Not that long before it was laid up, around 1999/2000, I went on more than a few drives in it with the previous owner, and shot lots of pictures (above, from 1999). Even now I can remember it well. Summer sun with the canvas hood off, heat from the bulkhead toasting my bare legs, matched by the horse hair in the split seat backs making
me itch, and the transmission roaring away. It sounds like torture, but actually was huge fun. The job for the summer is to fully detail the history of the car, and take it back to the places it worked on in its previous lifetime.
Tomorrow though, I’m in the right-hand seat, and the next stage in its history begins. Everything possible has been checked, passed as fit or replaced. Already, we can tell the car is ready. With so many parts on it now exactly as they should be, performing to new specification, it has to be the best mechanical shape it has been in for almost 60 years.
Pride comes before a fall though, so both James and I won’t be taking risks. The first drive will be just a mile or so, then the car will go back on the ramp for a check over, and make a judgement on what the car told us.
I’m expecting to discover a few issues; after all, the car has been taken apart, then bolted together again. If we’re happy with the first drive, I’ll take it out again, doubling the distance. Best case scenario, in the vein of the 1980’s cassette tape, is the 35 miles round trip to home and back. Wish me luck.