Washing away my sins. Sort of!

I’VE not been sleeping at all well for the past couple of months. It’s the guilt, you see. I never thought that my tongue-in-cheek comment to fellow LRM contributor and highly-regarded snapper, Alisdair Cusick, would cause him such angst, until I read about it in his Writer’s Rovers’ column in the September issue. Apparently, it all started when our Esteemed Editor asked Alisdair and I if we’d bring our Series Is to the inaugural Land Rover Legends show at Bicester Heritage last May, so they could be parked on the LRM stand. My 1949 vehicle had just taken part in the Land Rover Series One Club’s 70th anniversary run to Amsterdam, and Patrick had just written about our adventures in the July 2018 issue. Alisdair’s 1957 88-inch Series I has been a regular in LRM for a long time, initially covering his lengthy rebuild and then his fettling and trips out in it with his family. So it made sense to have the vehicles on the stand because they were fairly familiar to our readers.

Now, I confess that I hadn’t had time to give my vehicle a proper clean after the Amsterdam jaunt because the preparations for the Legends show simply hadn’t given me a spare hour to spruce it up, so when the time came to set off from Hampshire to drive to Bicester all I did was clean the windscreen, check the coolant, oil and tyre pressures, and get on the road.

When I arrived at Bicester I put the car on the LRM stand and rushed off to deal with the 1000-and-one pressing issues to do with setting up the show. Alisdair arrived a little later in UAO 426 which was, as usual, gleaming, and I bumped into him shortly after he arrived.

Maybe I sensed that he was looking at my pride and joy rather disparagingly, perhaps because of the 1500 miles-worth of accumulated squashed bugs on the front and the muddy stains and rainwater streaks on the sides.

Apparently I then made a comment about not cleaning my Land Rover very often, which is true, I don’t! But maybe it was the bit about being quite proud that I don’t clean my Land Rover that really caused the problem, because Alisdair decided to take a leaf out of my book and put away his polishing mops and his special compounds.

I had no idea that he’d be tempted to follow the same path of laziness and try it out on his pride and joy, but that’s what he did! And he became appalled by the dirt and dust and the loose horsehair, although I’m not sure what he’s been carrying in the back that causes the loose horsehair.

He parked it up for the winter and when he came to open the garage in the spring he was deeply irritated by it and, I think, rather ashamed.

Thankfully he ended the experiment and got out his cleaning kit before he completely fell out of love and sold the car! What can I say, other than to offer a heartfelt public apology, Alisdair? I really didn’t mean to lead you astray into the depths of vehicular negligence, but I am pleased that normal service has been resumed and UAO 426 is back to its usual spotless, shining glory.

How could I make amends, I asked myself? It was obvious. I should clean my car the way Alisdair cleans his and atone for my sins. I called Rob, a good friend who makes his living as a superdetailer... It used to be called valeting.

Rob gave me the step-by-step instructions on what to do, and then laughed heartily when I told him which of my Land Rovers was going to benefit from all his superdetailing wisdom.

Rob immediately withdrew the first few stages in the process, including the bit about using a special paint depth gauge, powered mops and cleaning compounds, suggesting the paint wasn’t thick enough to measure and the mops would take everything back to bare metal in the blink of an eye.

But the special water and the various stages of rubbing and buffing by hand and the application of assorted potions in strict sequence was strongly advised.

I soon had everything to hand courtesy of Rob, including a selection of what looked like toothbrushes and some stuff to make the tyres shiny.

I waited for the right kind of weather – dry, but not too hot and sunny. I washed the Series I with the special water and the first potion. It looked exactly the same. I made a cup of tea and then decided it might be a good idea to vacuum the mud and dust out of the footwells. I got underneath and had a look at the chassis and the axles. I could see what colour they were, which was encouraging, but Alisdair had written about spending a couple of hours cleaning and polishing his chassis and axles. I gave it a go, for about five minutes, and decided to make another cup of tea.

And then I packed all of Rob’s stuff back into the box it came in and took the Series I out for a drive down to the coast. It was much more fun. I’ve kept the toothbrushes for you, Alisdair!

“What can I say, other than a heartfelt apology, Alisdair? I didn’t mean to lead you astray into vehicular negligence”

■ Gary Pusey is co-author of Range Rover The First Fifty, trustee of The Dunsfold Collection and a lifelong Land Rover enthusiast. What this man doesn’t know, isn’t worth knowing!