Land Rover Legends
Charles Whitaker: Accomplished trials competitor and ex-engineer at Land Rover
LAND Rover’s senior executives blamed it on what they described as ‘adverse business conditions’, although there were some who thought the company’s owners, BMW, had decided they didn’t want to be associated with a high-profile expedition that might fail. Others muttered darkly that it had been killed off by the company’s PR chief because he hadn’t come up with the idea. Whatever the truth, the cancellation of the Land Rover Global Expedition deprived the company of what would have been a world first and the ultimate way to celebrate its 50th anniversary in 1998. It was also the low point in Charles Whitaker’s 30-year career as a Land Rover engineer.
“I had spent almost two years on the project,” Charles says, as we flick through his extensive albums of photographs and his document archives. “Initially, I had to give up my weekends to work on it although I was eventually seconded to Marketing and Sales and from that point was working on it full-time. The expedition’s objective was to complete the first self-propelled journey around the world’s horizontal land mass.
“The expedition would start on the west coast of Ireland and traverse the UK, Europe, Russia, Alaska and North America to eastern Nova Scotia, before finishing in New York. Along the way it would cross the Irish Sea, English Channel and Bering Strait and, because it was self-propelled, it would require a boat of some sort that could be driven by the expedition’s vehicles. In total, the team would cover 18,000 miles and the expedition was expected to last a year.
“It had been attempted by both Ford and Iveco in the early 1990s but neither had succeeded, and by 1995 renowned British explorer, expedition leader, fundraiser and writer Sir Ranulph Fiennes had joined forces with Canadian adventurer Gordon Thomas and Russian explorer Dmitri Shparo, and Land Rover had agreed to become the lead sponsor, providing financial and technical support, and several Defender 110s.
“The company also advertised internally for volunteers to join the expedition as drivers and mechanics, and I put my hand up. I remember going along to the first meeting with all the other volunteers. John O’donnell, who was head of external affairs for Vehicle Operations, really didn’t pull his punches when he said how tough he thought it would be. When he made a joke about us coming back in body bags it almost cleared the room!
“We met Ran Fiennes and I remember him saying that to be contenders we had to answer three questions… Did we have
wives, girlfriends or dependants; had we been circumcised, and were we Yorkshiremen! I fibbed twice, and my thengirlfriend Lynne, who is now my wife, only found out years later that I’d answered ‘no’ to the first question. She never lets me forget!”
Charles reads my mind and can see that I’m wondering whether you and I, dear reader, really need to know what the other fib was, but after a suitable pause he chuckles and tells me he was born in Northallerton in North Yorkshire!
“In February 1996, the three remaining Land Rover volunteers were taken to North Wales for a weekend with Ran and Oliver Shephard, and the plan was that we’d climb to the summit of Mount Snowdon. By the end of the weekend there were only two of us left: Granville Baylis and me! This meant that an additional driver/mechanic needed to be found, and the person selected was New Zealander Steve Signal. Two cameramen would also be joining us, together with additional guides for the Russian segment.
“Designing and building the boat or pontoon that would carry the Defenders across the three sea legs proved to be more difficult than expected, and this caused the planned start date for the expedition to be deferred. In the end a workable solution was designed by Adrian Thompson of Paragon Mann Ltd and constructed by Rob Crang of Hercules. It was an ingenious vessel dubbed the LRPC (Land Rover Powered Catamaran) that had two hydraulically powered paddle wheels at the stern, driven by the rear PTOS on the Defenders. To ensure the 110s could negotiate deep snow, trials were carried out with Mattracks, tracked units that replaced each wheel and resembled the earlier Cuthbertson conversions of the 1950s.
“In October 1996 we completed sea trials of the LRPC at ATTURM, the Royal Marines training centre at Instow, and we tested the tracked Defenders to satisfy ourselves they were up to the job. In early 1997 two Defenders and the LRPC were shipped to Seattle and transported by road to Anchorage, where we joined them. Everything was then air freighted with us in a Lockheed C130 Hercules to Wales, a small town on the Alaskan coast which is the closest point across the Bering Strait to Russia.
“We spent three months there and despite significant challenges we got to the point where the trials were successfully completed. We also underwent survival and emergency medical training and learned how to do things like giving injections! Back in Solihull we reported to senior management that the trials had been a success and we were ready to go. That’s why it was so devastating when they pulled the plug on the whole thing. It felt like a lost opportunity and a waste of two years of my life.
That life had begun in 1966 in the maternity ward at the Mount Maternity Hospital, Northallerton and, although he didn’t know it at the time, Charles was driven home on the front seat of his father’s Series II. “Dad had bought it in 1960 to replace a rather tired old Morris Minor that he’d driven over 100,000 miles in. He and mum would drive down to Italy every year for their holidays, that’s why the Morris had clocked up so many miles. When the Series II arrived it took over from the Morris and was used as the family’s everyday car as well as for the long trips to Italy.
“Dad was an engineer and did all the work on the car himself. He and my Mum made a tonneau that was tied down over the loadspace and they toured the Italian countryside with just the windscreen folded down and the tonneau protecting their basic camping equipment,” says Charles. Looking at the photos in the album I have to say it looks like a very stylish way to travel!
“Later on, Dad converted it to a station wagon. He even built his own heater! I was involved in the maintenance work as soon as I was old enough to hold a spanner, and I learned a vast amount. Dad would even change his own tyres and that’s why to this day I can replace a Land Rover tyre using only tyre levers. Dad eventually sold the Series II but I know where it is. I often think about trying to buy it back, and I actually still have one or two parts that Dad kept back when he sold it, such as the badges and the spotlight that used to be mounted on the front.
“Dad was a very keen member of the Land Rover Owners’
Club and regularly attended the National Rally. He would usually enter the concours and he won the Rover Hire Ltd cup for four years between 1971 and 1974. I still have the trophy today.”
At this point I’m expecting to hear that Charles learned to drive in the family Series II and passed his test in it but, interestingly, that wasn’t the case. “Dad made a centre seat for me to sit on in the Series II and some of my earliest memories are of kicking the car out of gear! I did learn to drive it many years later but Dad wasn’t the greatest or most patient of driving instructors, so it wasn’t until I’d gone to college that I actually learned to drive on the road and passed my test, in an Austin Metro!
“I was studying for my BTEC HND in Mechanical Engineering at Writtle Agricultural College near Chelmsford and at one point I spent 12 weeks working on a pea vine farm in the middle of the Romney Marsh. It paid enough to allow me to save the money to buy my first Land Rover, a 1977 Series III, which I kept for around eight years and drove over 100,000 miles.
“Once I gained my engineering qualification I wrote to three companies, including Land Rover which was really where I wanted to work, and
“I was involved in the maintenance work of dad’s Series II as soon as I was old enough to hold a spanner, and I learned a vast amount”
luckily they wrote back and after an interview I was offered a job as an engineer in Military and Special Projects. I started in August 1987 and was sent on a CAD training course before being assigned to the design section. I remained in Military vehicle engineering until 1997, when I joined the Global Expedition team full-time as part of the Marketing and Sales team.
“The ten years in Military vehicles were fascinating and I worked on customers’ vehicles all over the world. I was part of the team that carried out Hot Environmental Tests in Phoenix, Arizona, Mount Evans and Pikes Peak in Colorado, and Las Vegas in Nevada. I was also assigned to the Defender Wolf and Pulse teams and ran vehicle trials at RARDE, later known as the Defence Research Agency, and these included trials at Longcross, Bagshot and Long Valley as well as the Wolf UK Reliability Trials. In 1995 I was part of a team that competed in Exercise Roadmaster, which was organised by the British Army Motorsports Association and was a test of driving and navigational skills by day and by night. We won the Best Guest Crew award.
“Along the way I also spent time in Austria on the Defender disc brake programme, using the infamous and very steep Grössglockner Pass, and the Wolf Winterised Cold Environmental Tests in Norway and Sweden, which involved visiting the Royal Marines and Test Centre at Arjeplog.
“One of the things you could do in those days was arrange to take your annual leave to coincide with one of the overseas trials, and on several occasions I was able to borrow a prototype or development vehicle from the assessment fleet and head off for a week or two’s holiday!
“My first coil sprung Land Rover, a 110, was an engineering test vehicle that had arrived back in the UK from development work in Arizona. It had returned with a huge boulder of desert rock in the back, which had been requested by Land Rover engineering boss Bill Morris for the rockery in his garden in Warwick! As far as I know it’s still there to this day.
“My interest in trialling and off-road competition had continued to grow and when I moved to the Midlands I joined the Midland Rover Owners’ Club and immediately started trialling in the Series III, although because it was my daily drive I only entered Family Vehicle Trials at first. In 1990 I bought ‘Buttercup’, a 1955 Series I, from Allan Rollo, who was a workshop electrician at Solihull. In fact, trialling was such an important part of my life that after Lynne and I had been introduced on a blind date and I had decided to ask her out, it seemed sensible to take her along to a trial! She passed the test with flying colours, we became a couple, and later she took up trialling herself. She’s very good at it.”
It’s pretty obvious that Charles and Lynne are accomplished triallers because there are rather more than a few trophies displayed in a large cabinet in their sitting room, and soon they’re coming out one by one. ‘Buttercup’ has competed in the War of the Roses event on numerous occasions and was in the winning team in 2008, was second in 2000, 2005, 2006 and 2007, and part of the team that came third in 2003, 2004 and 2010. Other trophies relate to the Major’s Trial and the National Rally, as well as dozens of local MROC competitions. By the time I’ve added the trophies I spot when we visit the garage later in the day, I reckon there are well over 150 awards bearing Charles’ name, and another 30 or more belonging to Lynne. While Lynne is out of earshot I ask if she has ever beaten him in an off-road competition. “More than once,” he says with a grin, “and that includes beating me in the Major’s Trial! But that’s fine, because I taught her!
Following the cancellation of the Global Expedition, Charles remained in Marketing and Sales because the company had decided to create carefully-planned off-road holidays or ‘adventures’ that would be available to the public. The idea was to develop a small range of destinations in Europe and North Africa and base fleets of vehicles at each location for extended periods, so the paying public would fly in, complete the mini-expedition, and be replaced with a new party the following week
“I joined the team for the Land Rover adventure in France called the Hannibal Trail as well as one in Morocco. The problem was that there wasn’t enough interest at the time and the economies of scale couldn’t be realised. The idea was quietly dropped after only one season, so I moved on to Product Validation at Gaydon, running Land Rover Durability test vehicles.
“In 2000 I rejoined Military Engineering under Graham Archer, working on the creation of Military S-specs and dealing with a number of foreign military customers. One particularly interesting project was to assess a Defender Td5 automatic conversion that had been developed by the company’s South African operation, and I thought it was a
pity the idea was not taken further.
“In 2004 I joined Armoured Engineering, and I remained there until 2015. There’s only so much I can say publicly about what I worked on, for obvious reasons, but the job could be very interesting indeed when it involved things like ballistics testing with live ammunition, testing run-flat wheels or armour development! Initially, much of the conversion work was done by external specialists but soon the strategy changed, and JLR decided to do more and more of the work itself.
“I don’t think the senior managers of the business at the time understood the complexity and level of change to the vehicle and they certainly underestimated the amount of work they were expecting a small team to complete. JLR wanted to discourage customers from buying from these independent businesses. I think that senior management saw these companies as selling expensive specialist conversions of JLR vehicles and decided they wanted to have the margins from those specialist vehicles themselves. What people seemed to forget is that the aftermarket converters don’t need to deal with anything like the same levels of cost and complexity in relation to liability and warranty that the primary manufacturer needs to cover. In effect, JLR as a primary manufacturer was trying to replicate the business model of a small, specialist aftermarket converter and this was never going to be achievable, because JLR had to get these conversions up to the same standards as the mainstream production vehicles. At the end of the day the customer sees a Land Rover badge on the front of the vehicle.”
Charles spent his final two years as Off-road Capability Product Attribute team leader, working on the SVA, SVR and SVX vehicles being developed by Special Vehicles. This involved extensive vehicle testing in the UK, Sweden and the USA, as well as a great deal of competitor vehicle assessment. In 2017, Charles decided it was time to retire and left the company after 30 years. He was presented with his 30 years certificate at his leaving presentation.
“I had an interesting, varied and sometimes fun career at Land Rover, but the greatest thing was getting to know so many good people, some of who became lifelong friends.
“One of the things I wanted to do was spend more time on my collection of vehicles,” says Charles, “and finish the long list of outstanding jobs on the barn conversion we had moved into several years ago. I’ve also collected a large archive of Land Rover material that really needs to be sorted and catalogued.
“My ongoing frustration at the cancellation of the Global Expedition eased considerably when I was able to buy the Defender 110 that I had prepared for the expedition and tested in Alaska. After the recce to Alaska the two Defenders and the pontoon were abandoned on the land which was to be become the Aston Martin production facility. When the site was cleared the green Wolf Defender went to the British Motor Industry Heritage Trust, but they decided to sell the red Defender and it was purchased by a fitter at Gaydon before I realised that it was for sale. I had to pay him a healthy profit to prise the keys out of his hands, but I was delighted to finally own it. Sadly, the Pto-powered pontoon was left outside at Gaydon and then unceremoniously scrapped. I have renovated the 110 to exactly the specification it had for the Global Expedition and it has a set of tracks and the A-frame front-mounted crane I developed to assist with the launching of the pontoon.
“I also bought the Pre-production Jay, later of course known as a Discovery, from Bill Morris in 2006. Bill had owned it for many years and had entered competitive offroad trials with it, but it had been laid up on his drive for quite a while. I bought it to preserve a future classic and because I was keen to own a prototype Land Rover of a model that was developed during my early years with the company. It needs a fair bit of work and there are several more projects on the go as well, including some related to my interest in early tractors and other agricultural machinery dating from the 1950s to the 1970s. I don’t think there’s any chance of me running out of things to do!”
“It’s pretty obvious that Charles and Lynne are accomplished triallers because there are rather more than a few trophies displayed in a large cabinet in their sitting room and garage”
With grateful thanks to Charles and Lynne for their hospitality. Lynne’s homemade cake deserves a special mention!