GARY PUSEY

T he E nthusiast

Acouple of things have come together over recent weeks that have got me thinking about my early Land Rover experiences. The first is the interviews I have been doing for future articles in LRM’S Land Rover Legends series, which have involved me speaking to a few folk that I first met over 26 years ago, when I was new to the world of Land Rover ownership. And the second was our esteemed Editor’s recent trip to Iceland (LRM Winter issue). When five friends and I planned our own expedition to that beautiful country way back in 1993, it was in many ways the culmination of my early off-roading adventures and experiences.

I’d wanted a Range Rover since I first saw one as a teenager in the early 1970s, and every time one appeared on the telly I wanted one even more. Remember those early product placements? John Steed in TXC 922J in The New Avengers; the Cessna being chased by Roger Moore and Tony Curtis in PXC 342J in The Persuaders (on loan from Rover’s press department, I imagine. I wonder if they knew it was going to be driven through a farm gate at speed?); and NXC 239H, one of the press launch preproduction models no less, that appeared in several episodes of Dr Who.

In those distant days, the Range Rover always seemed to be driven by the stylish, suave good guys. Am I the only one who gets the impression that in more modern films Range Rovers are more often than not driven by the shady crooks, while the Defenders are driven by the goodies? Or maybe I’m just watching too much James Bond. Come to think of it, aren’t JLR sponsors of the Daniel Craig films?

Anyway, back in the 1970s I just thought the Range Rover was the coolest car, and was desperate to own one. Sadly, by the time I was gainfully employed, the pay for a BT trainee only covered the cost of a motorbike, although if I say so myself my old Norton Commando was also pretty cool, as long as you didn’t mind an engine rebuild every few months!

In fact, it was to take me another 12 years before I could afford to buy my first Range Rover. Having saved enough, I wandered in to the local Land Rover main dealer in Taunton to enquire about the secondhand D-reg 3.5 they had for sale, which was just about within my reach. After a successful test drive the salesman was happy to let me buy it but, sensible chap that he was, he insisted I have a test drive in their six-month-old 3.9 demonstrator first. It was no contest, and with a scribble of the pen on the loan agreement, I’d bought the 3.9.

The nice salesman threw in a free day at the then-new Land Rover Experience off-road centre at the Solihull factory site, and that’s where, a couple of months later, I had my first introduction to serious off-road driving, courtesy of an LRE Range Rover and chief instructor Roger Crathorne. I was immediately, utterly, hooked.

I signed-up for a weekend of off-roading at Dave Mitchell’s in North Wales, and there met a very youthful Nick Dimbleby who was photographing the event for an off-road magazine. It turned out that Nick lived with his parents just outside Taunton, a few miles from me, and he had soon persuaded me of the wisdom of his cunning plan that we should collaborate on a series of articles on the theme of learning to drive off-road, which would involve us visiting many of the burgeoning number of training centres that were springing-up all over the UK.

Richard Thomas, who would later become the founding editor of LRM, was delighted to accept the proposal as well. After all, where else was he going to find someone daft enough to take their nearly-new Range Rover to a dozen off-road schools, drive through everything they had to offer, allow himself to be photographed and published in various degrees of embarrassing stuckness, and pay for his own repairs? But it was tremendous fun and I certainly learned a lot in a short space of time.

Those off-road driving schools encompassed everything from purpose built facilities to open hillside, from forestry tracks and muddy fields to redundant quarries; from experienced pioneers in off-road driving to relative newcomers who’d spotted the increasing interest and jumped on the bandwagon. We visited two centres in Scotland, one in the Borders, two in the Lake District, one in Yorkshire, several in the Midlands, and one in Devon. Each one was different, and every visit taught me something new.

The Range Rover acquired some honourable battle scars along the way, but after the first scratch and dent you stop worrying and get on with the fun. And the car looked even cooler with all the evidence that it was being used as its makers intended.

The experience led to other things as well, including a series of mods to make the car more effective, and then the first steps towards greenlaning, and more serious multi- day off-road expeditions, in the UK and abroad, culminating in that wonderful fortnight in Iceland. And a diversion into Series I ownership. But they are tales for another day.

“In those days, the Range Rover always seemed to be driven by the suave good guys”