And now for the good news…

THE past is a foreign country. They do things differently there. So read the immortal first line of The Go Between, a novel by L P Hartley, in which the narrator recalls the early years of the 20th century. But he could just as easily have been talking about the recent history of Land Rover.

At the turn of this century, when there were just four Land Rover models (Defender, Discovery, Freelander and just one Range Rover, the P38), I’d have laughed if someone had told me that by 2021 there would be seven, including four variations on the Range Rover theme.

But I should have known better. The pace of change in my lifetime has been startling. I was born in 1956 into a world of steampowered trains, where most ordinary families had neither car, television set, fridge nor washing machine, while space travel was the stuff of science fiction. By the time I’d reached my teens, steam trains had been consigned to history, Man had walked on the Moon and nearly every family had all manner of domestic appliances and a car – or at least they did in the rural area I grew up in.

Statistics prove my point. In 1950 there were about four million cars on the UK’S roads. This had risen to five million by 1960, then doubled to ten million by 1970. By 2010 there were 34 million cars on the road and today there are 40 million – but it’s unlikely to rise any further. Car ownership is officially in decline, especially in London and other major cities. More than 2.3 million people now live in areas where there is one car per five adults, as opposed to a decade ago when the same statistic stood at 1.1 million.

But it’s a different story in rural areas, where public transport ranges from poor or non-existent. For example, in Woolpit, Suffolk, there is a car for every adult. The figure is even greater in the vicinityof Bourne,

Lincolnshire, but that’s mainly because LRM’S Steve Miller lives there, along with his vast collection of shabby Land Rovers in various states of disrepair.

Joking aside, none of these trends were ever foreseen by me, so you have every excuse to scoff as I attempt to see into the future – but I’m going to try all the same.

First, car ownership is going to continue to fall. Electric vehicles are expensive and will be the domain of the wealthy. And in a society where the gap between haves and have-nots grows ever wider, it’s going to get worse. I may have mentioned this once or twice before.

Of course, some of us will soldier on with our beloved Land Rovers, but we will be up against it. Just a decade ago, ultra-clean modern diesel engines were seen as the greener future, but thanks to the scandalously dishonest antics of car makers like VW with their fiddled emissions claims, Dirty Diesel gets more boos and hisses than a pantomime villain. Oh yes it does!

Meanwhile, owners of older petrol-fuelled Land Rovers have discovered that the new E10 unleaded petrol, which has been compulsory since September 1, will do serious damage to most parts of their cars that it comes into contact with, which includes anything made from rubber, alloy or plastic – in other words, most of the fuel system. Oh yes, and spill some on your paintwork and it will blister. That’s because it contains ten per cent bioethanol. It’s made from plants and it sounds benign, but this stuff is a predator that eats cars.

Unless you adapt your pre-2011 petrol vehicle, you will need to seek out Super Unleaded, which will be available at some filling stations – at least for now. How long before it is phased out, though? In fact, how long will it be before filling stations themselves are consigned to history? They are, after all, privately-owned and run concerns and once there is insufficient business they will close.

At the moment the government is offering all sorts of financial incentives to make the swap to electric, but motorists are still dragging their heels. It won’t be long before our rulers resort to tougher tactics to persuade us to give up our internal combustion engines. Restricting drivers of petrol and diesel cars to 50 mph while EVS are allowed to speed past at 70 mph will be disguised as anti-emissions legislation. And, of course, every town and city will be forced to impose LEZ (low emissions zones) similar to London’s, which will effectively banish all our Land Rovers to the countryside – or what remains of it, as our population continues to grow, along with the advance of the urban sprawl.

If you own an EV and are feeling smug, you have no reason to be. All those tax breaks the government is currently chucking at you will end as soon as universal EV ownership is achieved. It has to, because the loss of fuel duty and road tax revenue has got to be made up somehow. Motorists have always been the government’s cash cows and that won’t change just because you ditched diesel.

The past may be a foreign country, but the future is a whole new world. Happy motoring.

“Thanks to the antics of car makers like VW with their fiddled emissions claims, Dirty Diesel gets more boos and hisses than a pantomime villain”