Dave Phillips
T he Voca l Yokel
There are lots of things in this wonderful world of ours that puzzle me. For example, why do professional footballers perform elaborate celebrations every time they do their job (score a goal)? How come butterflies, with brains the size of a pin head, can navigate thousands of miles across continents while some humans can’t even read a road map? But the biggest cause of wonderment to me is how many otherwise sane people overvalue their Land Rovers.
My mate Mick loves nothing better than restoring old cars. He gets his sadistic pleasure from turning rusty relics into headturners. I bumped into him in the pub the other day and asked him what was the most difficult part of his hobby. I expected him to tell me it was tackling vast areas of rust with the disc cutter, or searching for rare/obsolete parts, but his answer surprised me. “The biggest pain are the people who think their wrecks are worth a load of money,” he told me.
“Land Rover owners are the worst,” he went on. “The other week I got to hear about an old Series III parked up in someone’s garden. It was only a few miles away, so I drove over to see it. It turned out to be a very neglected 109 Station Wagon, covered with green algae and moss and half-hidden by bushes that had grown around it. It sat on four perished flat tyres and I could see the bulkhead and rear crossmember were rusted beyond repair. The outriggers had turned to dust and the chassis looked shot, too.
“It was obvious it had been there for years, but ever the optimist I fancied a bit of a challenge, so I asked the owner how much he wanted for it. ‘I won’t take a penny less than £4000,’ he replied. And he was deadly serious.
“I told him it wasn’t even worth £400, but he wouldn’t have it. ‘You can’t get one over me,’ he said. ‘I know the value of old Land Rovers and if I can’t sell it I’ll keep it as an heirloom for my son. It’ll be worth a fortune one day.’ There was no point trying to talk sense to him, so I walked away.”
Mick blames satellite TV and the plethora of classic car restoration programmes that are aired, raising the expectations of owners of old junk to the point of delusion. But in the case of Land Rovers I think it has got a lot to do with a combination of
factors about eight years ago, when old Solihull metal suddenly became very fashionable.
It really was as recently as that. Back at the turn of the century, sanity still prevailed. You could pick up a reasonable Series III with a year’s MOT for a few hundred pounds. Early three- door Range Rovers were prized for their V8 engines and either butchered into bobtailed (shortened) triallers, or their engines were transplanted into 80-inch Series Is, again, to become triallers.
It was the 80-inch original Land-rovers (they had a hyphen back then) that were first to be embraced as classic cars, and as they became collectable, so the prices shot upwards. The original 1970 Range Rovers followed suit soon afterwards.
But it was around 2010 that Land Rover prices really shot up. Defenders had suddenly become a fashion icon and everybody knew that the end of production was in sight. The recentlyintroduced Puma Defenders, with the TDCI engines they shared with Ford Transit vans, weren’t universally popular, so a lot of buyers were spending a lot of money getting older Tdi and Td5 models tastefully restored. This trend didn’t go unnoticed and, as always, where there was a demand supply soon followed. In this case, entrepreneurial bespoke builders began blinging up Defenders, which sold for a lot of money.
This hike in prices of Defenders in turn raised the values of all utility Land Rovers. For example, in a very short period of time, values of vehicles like Series III ex-military Lightweights shot up from £1500 to £5000 or more. What had been a very basic Land Rover with few creature comforts suddenly became very sought-after.
In fact, prices were raised unrealistically. It was obvious the bubble had to burst – and there are signs that it already has – but the damage has been done. Anyone who owns a clapped-out old Land Rover is convinced it is his own gold mine.
Prepare to beware of falling expectations.
“It was around 2010 that Land Rover prices really shot up. Defenders had become a fashion icon and everybody knew the end of production was in sight”
EX-LRM Editor Dave has driven Land Rovers in most corners of the world, but loves the British countryside best