Club sociable
1994 range rover
Driving through Solihull in my 1994 press launch P38 Range Rover always gives me a slight frisson of excitement. It’s curiously thrilling to know that many of the passers-by will have some connection with the Land Rover factory, which has been the town’s major employer since the end of World War Two, and that some of them will be clocking the vehicle’s ‘CVC’ registration and recognising it as one of their own.
The occasion for this particular visit was a gettogether for members of the CVC Register, a club for anyone who owns or is interested in Land Rovers with a company history. Like a lot of car clubs, we mainly communicate through Facebook, but former Land Rover employee Ron Brown – who worked on several interesting projects during the 1990s – had the bright idea of an evening get-together at Land Rover’s social club, preceded by a visit to the new Range Rover Experience exhibition within the factory itself.
Ron also pulled a few strings and got permission for club vehicles to be photographed in front of Number One Block, the original Land Rover headquarters that have been swallowed up by the vast modern factory complex. About a dozen Land Rovers and Range Rovers turned up, including Paul Bohan’s very patinated Series II and Richard Hopkins’ ex-Police P38, complete with working LED ‘Follow Me’ lightbox on the tailgate – just as it looked in 1997, when it escorted Princess Diana’s hearse from Westminster Abbey to Althorp House in Northants.
In the days leading up to the CVC event, I took M231 CVC over to Bishops 4x4 near Peterborough (www. bishops4x4.co.uk), as recommended to me by former editor David Lillywhite, to see if they could cure an irritating idle problem. The car had a habit of not dropping below 1500rpm at rest, or even shooting up towards 3000rpm. Chris Bishop and technician Rob agreed that it sounded as though the idle control valve – also known as a stepper motor, because it’s an electric solenoid that works in ‘steps’ – was at fault; removing and cleaning it has improved things but the revs are still lazy to drop from 1500rpm, although most of the time it will now idle normally. I suspect I’ll end up buying a new unit.
This minor irritation didn’t spoil a great day out at Solihull, of which my personal highlight was a long chat with former Land Rover head of design George Thomson, who was responsible for the P38. One of the delights of an early P38 is its handbook, which makes imaginative use of coloured illustrations by contributor, the late, lamented Bob Freeman, rather than stark line drawings.
George is an innately modest man and, while not openly taking credit for this genius idea, he admits that he was a subscriber to back in the day – and is a keen subscriber to today.