‘I accidentally bought Princess Diana’s old Range Rover’
1993 Range Rover Vogue SE Victor Wild, Gloucestershire
That’s quite a catch, Victor!
'It was definitely unexpected! I was looking for a classic Range Rover to drive the kids around in and spotted this one at Cirencester Polo Club. I made some discreet enquiries and, once I’d found the owner, he said he’d had it for a year but hadn’t bonded with it. The deal was done for a good price and he gave me a massive pile of paperwork – some 700 pages of it in total! Tucked away among the mountain of paper I found a log book with the name ‘HRH Diana Spencer’ on it, registered to Kensington Palace. I figured that there could only be one of those.'
So, this was the Royal couple's family car then?
'In a way, yes. Prince Charles and Diana, Princess of Wales had already separated by the time the keys were dropped into Diana’s hand – although they didn’t divorce until 1994 – but for sure, it’s likely that both William and Harry would have been driven around in this car regularly. I don’t think Diana had it long, as she got herself an example of the then-new Range Rover P38 in 1995.'
Does this particular Vogue have any modifications?
'Very much so! It was a conversion by Holland and Holland – including the beautifully-crafted gun cabinet in the boot and a drinks cabinet. The first ‘official’ Holland and Holland edition was a P38 and the 2019 model retails for £180,000 – so this one is pretty special, as it was specially made for the Royal family and a testbed for what was to come. They converted five vehicles in total. Land Rover and Jaguar would often give cars to the Windsors and this one has a Land Rover Heritage Certificate to prove it. Unfortunately, the gun cabinet is quite annoying as you can hear the drawers sliding opening when you go around corners.'
Was it in good condition when you bought it?
'It was OK – clean but fairly well used, too. None of the electrics worked. From the headlights to the wipers and electric seats, it needed a lot of attention. The air suspension needed a fair bit of work so I rebuilt that, uprating all the anti-roll bars and bushes to stop it rolling around all over the place. I bought another set of seats so I could swap the motors. I didn’t want to replace the whole items as the original seats had had Royal bums on them, after all!'