Sunday Mirror (Northern Ireland)
His last secret mission
Land Rover was a hush-hush project
IT was an eccentric touch perfectly in keeping with the car-loving Duke’s mischievous sense of humour.
Prince Philip’s specially-adapted Land Rover hearse took centre-stage at his send-off, and the Sunday Mirror today reveals its secrets.
We tracked down the chief engineer who worked on the vehicle, designed to the Duke’s exact specifications.
In an exclusive interview, Steve Routly told us how the vehicle dreamed up by Philip himself was kept for more than a decade in a hush-hush temperature-controlled compound a few miles from the Jaguar Land Rover HQ in Coventry.
Just 30 engineers had been trusted to work on it – and the Duke’s coffin was made at the same time to perfectly fit the vehicle.
Steve, 54, who left the car giant two years ago, said: “It was in a special temperature-controlled compound, not many people in the company know it even exists.
“The Duke’s Land Rover has been in there for a decade, being regularly serviced and looked
after for whenever it might be needed.”
And he says the project was so secret that even the firm’s new
CEO, Thierry Bolloré, was probably kept in the dark too.
Steve said: “I suspect he didn’t know about the vehicle until very recently. Not many people would have been told about it.”
The idea for the hearse started out as a joke between Philip and the Queen – when he once told her that when he died she should “just stick me in the back of a Land Rover and drive me to Windsor.” The Duke then decided to turn the quip into reality. Steve, who now runs his own engineering consultancy, added: “The coffin was made at the same time because the rollers had to be measured to the exact size.
“The vehicle and coffin go as a pair.
The vehicle was a completely bespoke build on a 130 Defender chassis.
“There were two built, one as a spare. All the body panels for the doors were hand-built and unique. The car was in a different green to start with, but was repainted.”
Philip’s decision came after a long personal association with the iconic British brand. He had a close relationship with the firm’s bosses and repeatedly visited their Solihull HQ after starting the design of the hearse in 2003, when he was 82.
He had previously converted a 16-seat gun-bus vehicle, known as The Jumbo, for shooting parties on the royal estates.
The royal family have used Land Rovers
HONOUR Engineer Steve Routly
for decades and the company has produced four state ceremonial vehicles for the Queen. The latest, delivered in 2015, is a hybrid and can run on purely electric power for low-speed ceremonial duties.
Steve, of Ilmington, Warks, added: “We’ve done hundreds of special projects and one-offs, but this was really special for the team. He was a strong Land Rover fan and he drove them right until the end.
“It’s the ultimate honour, we’re enormously proud and humbled. It was emotional seeing it.”
Colleague Bob Honnor added: “The craftsmanship and love that went into its production are clear to see.
“It will be heavily tinged with sadness as we had to lose such a great man for it to come out of storage.”
Staring straight ahead as they walked in step behind the hearse were Philip’s children, Prince Charles, Princess Anne, Prince Andrew and Prince Edward. They were joined by his grandsons, Princes William and Harry, and Princess Anne’s son Peter.
Anne’s husband Vice Admiral Sir Tim Laurence and the Queen’s nephew, the Earl of Snowdon, also walked with them as they made their way to the chapel.
A wreath of white roses and lilies, chosen by the Queen, lay on his coffin with a handwritten card, edged in black, from Her Majesty, his wife of 73 years.