RANGE ROVER

RUNBY Martin Buckley OWNED SINCE March 2012 PREVIOUS REPORT Dec 2023

Not a lot has been done to the Range Rover in recent months, but significant progress is imminent. In the meantime, I have acquired a stash of new bits for it, including a rear floor side section to repair the load area, a front seatbelt (the original is tatty and doesnʼt return

to its hole in the seat very easily), pedal rubbers, and front and rear ʻRange Roverʼ decals (which Iʼm not sure I really need), all of which came from Famous Four.

I also bought a dent-puller to hopefully sort the bashed-up tailgate, although it involves glue and a heat gun and will likely be a disaster in my hands. Finally, I splashed out on another pair of lids for the washer bottle and a set of Ochre Tan front carpets from Danbury Classic Car Carpets (left).

My snag list – it runs to one and a half sheets of A4 – is split into ʻeasy winsʼ and ʻnice to haveʼ. Included are having a spare set of keys cut, getting an MOT and giving the bumpers, grille and mirrors a fresh coat of black paint.

When I bought my most recent piece of giant wall art for the barn, Steve Masters managed to tear the headlining in his enthusiasm to load it safely on board. I was feeling too polite to say anything and the lining was getting scruffy anyway. Enquiries about getting it re-covered either resulted in a refusal to get involved (it needs ʻspecialʼ glue from America, apparently), or a sizable quote of around the £600 mark. I did find somebody deep in the West Country who would do it for much less, but this involved a schlep down the M5, which didnʼt appeal, and especially so when I realised the cost didnʼt involve fitting.

In the meantime, I managed to remove the damaged headlining without causing any further problems: it was a two-section glassfibre moulding split around the centre of the roof, but Iʼm not sure it is entirely standard.

At this point my luck improved on two fronts. First, a friend found me a very good secondhand single-piece headlining (far left) from a two door that was being restored (I say ʻrestoredʼ, but it was actually in much better nick than mine). I was then introduced to a man called Antonio who, as a trained aeronautical engineer, seems a bit over-qualified to be working on rusty Range Rovers. But, having done a great job of getting my Mercedes-benz 230CE up and running, he seemed like a prime candidate for doing the welding and the headlining on the Range Rover. Iʼm expecting it to return any day now.