Led astray
Some may love a filthy Land Rover, but not our Alisdair
Ican pinpoint the exact moment it happened, and the blame rests solely with Gary Pusey. Last year, while setting up our cars at the Land Rover Legends show one morning, Gary casually mentioned something about not really washing his Series I a great deal. In fact, he added, he
was working on cultivating a look of not quite grubbiness, but certainly that of the vehicle having been used.
I have to say this is something I’ve never done before, or even considered. I’ve always kept my cars clean and shiny. However, standing next to the two Series Is - his in matt paint, rubbed theatrically through to alloy on the corners, mine in 60-year-old paint, faded from UV damage, dinged and scratched here and there from a life working – I had a bit of a ‘wild weekend’ moment. Like the older boy who leads you astray, I gave in to Gary’s thinking. Yes, I thought; what a great idea. I shall do that to mine. I shall let the recently-buffed shine fade on my 88-inch, and build in a little bit of grubbiness. After all, it would get laughs, not points if I entered it in a concours competition, so why not. Let it get dirty – bring on the muck – my car can be one of ‘those’.
Folks, I have to tell you, I’m writing this a year later. Sober, sorry and a failure. I tried my best, really I did. Through the searing summer heat of last year, I didn’t wash it once. Dust filled the cabin, and built up. Thanks to plenty of use with the hood off, that dust got absolutely everywhere. The seats, original as they may be, continued to lose horsehair stuffing, which then sat there, lining the footwells and seatbox. The old paint I’d cut two decade’s fading from, lost the gloss I’d built up, and faded back to looking dry, matt and ratty again. Splatted flies began to layer on the windscreen, and after all this, I just tucked it away and left it.
Like a house the morning after a party, after the winter lay up out of use, the rediscovered year of grime on the car wasn’t quite so appealing. Every time I got in the car, the loose horsehair stuck to me; that cabin dust of the long-forgotten summer transferred on to me and ruined whatever clothes I wore, and whatever I put into the car. The car looks unusual, I’m readily aware, but I became conscious of the stares not being because of what the car was, but because it was simply scruffy, and it made me scruffy using it. Instead of pleasure, it irritated me that I should get so needlessly grubby.
So, my ‘wild weekend’ moment ended for me and my Series I. I admit it: I am a
cleaner. I like my cars presented well, looking their best. Gary’s supercharged Series is great fun, but before the Easter Peak District trip with my son I spent a couple of hours underneath it cleaning the chassis and axles back to the beautiful, fresh paint again. I washed it inside and out, cleansed the paint and layered the wax on. Back to my normal routine, the Bronze Green deepens, a clean chassis and axles contrasts against the bodywork gloss and the car is what I want it to be.
My Range Rover is a different animal, of course, and is kept prepped to within an inch of its life. If it looks like the brochure car of 1995, then I’m happy. It was MOT time for that this month, and another year with a trouble-free pass, and about 800 miles since the last one. A single oil leak is noted, but only because they have to, they tell me, and wearing lower shock bushes were the only other advisory. They’ve only done about 3-4k, but came with the shocks, fitted in 2013-14. As ever, I’m putting that partially down to the ever-present difficulty of finding quality parts these days. After all, I haven’t exactly done the Camel Trophy in it, but evidently family holidays were too much for these bushes. An half-hour, twospanner job to sort, I’m ordering a replacement set after I’ve typed this, along with the annual oil filter (always a Genuine Parts one for that), air filter and some EP90 for the diffs.
The Classic is on for holiday duty this year again, though there’s a longer motorway slog this time, but it should be fine. We spend so much time fettling and tinkering on our cars, I think it is right that they’re used in a way to appreciate them. The Range Rover is perfectly at home in modern traffic and motorways, so I like to use it. The Series is the opposite, but I’ve recently started to enjoy being a distance from home in that. I’m confident it will be reliable, but there’s a great feeling of adventure from heading out and exploring in that little car.
I’ve recently been chatting with the previous owner of UAO, and hopefully he’s going to come down for one of my Peak District trips. In many ways it is a different car to when I first saw and drove it in 1999, but to reunite him with it, and put him behind the pedals will be fun. Hopefully he’ll think so too.