Range Rover Classic
I was delighted to be asked by Land Rover to bring my Range Rover along to the Goodwood Festival of Speed for its special 70th Anniversary event. The idea was to get 70 Land Rovers to drive up the famous hillclimb in convoy, so creating a new record for the most vehicles ever on the hill at once.
Well, as you’ll have seen from both the commercial and social media, we did it. But at this end, it was all a bit touch and go.
The Range Rover (yes, yes, my wife’s) had been misbehaving – stalling when slowing to a stop. The stall seemed to occur just as the auto ‘box changed down into first gear, and I’d developed a coping strategy. It involved left-foot braking and keeping a few extra revs on when coasting to a halt – and while idling at rest, for good measure.
But that’s surely no good for the gearbox and torque converter, so I bit the bullet, dug out the piggy bank, and booked J180 OAC into my local specialist for a check-over.
Garage mechanic Ian sucked his teeth a bit, and muttered about how different our Range Rover is from standard ones of its age. Was I quite sure it wasn’t some sort of hybrid cobbled together from parts of newer ones? Well, yes, I was; it was an engineering test vehicle at Land Rover and has all sorts of things that you wouldn’t expect – notably all the wiring for an air suspension system that was taken off some years ago.
I think Ian adjusted everything he could find (and replaced the Lambda sensors for good measure), and two days later it was running fine. So fine, in fact, that he couldn’t make it stall however hard he tried. He still has no idea which adjustment finally cured it. Nor did he have any idea of the nail-biting that was going on back in the Taylor household, because we were due down at Goodwood for the Big Event the following day.
We got there comfortably, but I didn’t trust it yet and so was still using the left-foot braking trick and keeping the revs up at idle, just in case. But, bless it, the Range Rover was absolutely fine as we drove slowly up the Goodwood hill and past the famous house with 69 other Land Rovers.
But, of course, something had to go wrong. Parked in a reserved area at the top of the hill, we were closing the car up to go and look at the rest of the Festival, when the passenger’s side electric window failed. When my shot nerves have recovered, I must have a
look at that.