Patience is a virtue!
Steve Owen had to wait 25 years before he finally became the proud owner of a certain North America Dollar Area Series I
IT HAD to be true love! Why else would a Lancashire lad desert his newly-restored Lightweight Land Rover, to say nothing of his family and his hometown, and emigrate 3750 miles from Belmont, Lancashire, to Oshkosh, Wisconsin? Steve Owen grew up on the family farm a few miles north of Bolton, and as well as Land Rovers his other passion was aeroplanes. And it was aeroplanes that were the root cause of the upheaval.
“I’ve been a planespotter since I was ten or eleven years old,” says Steve, “That’s when dad took me to Manchester’s Ringway airport for a day out. It was a lot more interesting than a day on the beach at Southport and I was hooked! My passion for Land Rovers began around the same time when I learned to drive in a short wheelbase Series III on the farm and later delivered milk from it. Dad also owned a 1959 Series II 109 soft top which we restored together later in its life, and later on I had a 1974 Lightweight which I completely rebuilt but had to sell when I moved to the USA. Sadly, it wasn’t eligible for import into the US because of the 25 year rule, so I couldn’t take it with me.
“When I got to high school in Bolton I found out there were others interested in planes and we started to travel all over the country to spot them. In 1982 I set off on a mega spotting tour of the USA which included a visit to the Oshkosh Fly-in, which I had read about in the aviation magazines. It’s the biggest event of its kind in the world, with over 10,000 visiting aircraft. I went to the show again in 1991 and I rented a room in a house owned by a lady called Pat. We were married the following year and I moved from Bolton to Oshkosh!
“I’ve attended every Oshkosh display since then, and I’m now Co-chairman of Flight Line Operations and help set up the temporary taxiways for the show. The flight line alone is two miles long and over a quarter of a mile deep. Nothing in the UK or Europe comes close to it in terms of the sheer scale of the event!
“My interest in Land Rovers didn’t stop, though, and shortly after moving to Wisconsin I bought a Us-spec 1992 Range Rover Classic. At 285,685 miles I blew the engine and at first I tucked the car away with thoughts about restoring it, but in the end I realised how expensive this was going to be and I sold it for spares to another Range Rover owner. Like all of them, mine was beginning to rust out in the rear wheel arches and tailgate. You would not believe the amount of salt that goes onto the roads in our part of Wisconsin during the winter months, when temperatures regularly drop to well below minus 20C. At that time there was only one Land Rover dealer in the entire State of Wisconsin, and it was a 180 mile round trip to get there! There’s now a main dealer 25 miles away, but Range Rovers have gotten way too pricey for my pockets!
“When I first moved to Oshkosh Icould not work until I had the necessary papers from the authorities, so I spent my time exploring my new hometown and the surrounding area. One day I was astonished to see a Series I sitting on a driveway in the town of Omro. Old Land Rovers are not exactly common around here and this was the first one I’d seen. I stopped to chat to the owner, John Mcdonald, who told me it had been his father-in-law’s and was originally from Arizona. I asked him what he planned to do with it and he told me it wasn’t for sale because he planned to restore it.
“Fast forward a few years and I’d set up my own chimney sweeping business and went to Mr Mcdonald’s home to clean his chimney, and there was the Land Rover, exactly as I’d seen it before. And still not for sale. Several years later I was at his house again, this time to install a fireplace, and once again there was the Series I and still no sign of the restoration he insisted he was going to do. And no, it was not for sale. Then in 2007 John Mcdonald died and everything was disposed of in an estate sale, including the Land Rover. All this happened while I was on holiday back in the UK, and I was sad to have lost the chance finally to have bought it, but life goes on!
“In 2010 I went to a house in the nearby town of Green Lake to fit a fireplace and the owner, intrigued to find that a Brit had turned up to do the job, told me that I might like to see an old British car that he owned. I couldn’t believe it when he opened the garage door and there was Mr Mcdonald’s Land Rover! The new owner insisted he was going to ‘do it up’ and no, he wouldn’t sell it to me.
“And then in 2017 I went back to the same house to do another job and the owner’s wife told me she’d just divorced him and he was supposed to have taken the Land Rover with him. He hadn’t, and she asked me if I would like it. I couldn’t quite believe it – 25 years after I first saw it, and after numerous failed attempts to buy it, it might finally be mine! Needless to say, my answer was yes! There were a few nervous moments sorting out legal ownership and paperwork, and at times I wondered whether it might slip through my fingers again, but everything was sorted out, an offer was made and accepted, and in June that year I was loading it on my trailer for the drive home, and already thinking about what I’d need to do to get it back on the road.
“But first I needed to work out exactly what I’d got and decide what I wanted to do with it. Some research quickly
revealed that chassis number 36131621 was delivered to the Rootes dealership in Los Angeles, California in December 1952. The name R H Reed, Coolidge, Arizona, is written in the original owner’s manual that came with the vehicle, and I think he was the first owner. It was later owned by Howard Andraska of Coolidge and when he died in 1979 his son-inlaw, John Mcdonald, towed it all the way from Arizona to Wisconsin, where I first saw it in 1992.
“The Series I was in amazing condition, and I decided to preserve as much of it as I possibly could. I wanted a Land Rover that showed off its story with pride, and not something that looked like new. I also wanted to do as much of the work myself as I could, and I’d have to do it as time and money allowed, but I set myself a goal to finish it by 2020.
“I joined the Land Rover Series One Club and the Land Rover Register 1948-1953 in the UK and was soon making contact with owners and enthusiasts across the US, Canada, Europe and the UK. This global community was to prove invaluable to the project. As the only Series I owner for miles, it was good to have people to talk to, to share problems with, and to ask for advice. It’s fair to say that I couldn’t have finished the job without their help and support!
“One of the first contacts I made was Hugh Back in the UK, who at the time was the editor of Full Grille, the newsletter of the Land Rover Register. Hugh was very helpful and also suggested I write about my project for the newsletter, which I was very happy to do, and it was helpful to hear from other members where to find the parts I needed. I did have some interesting challenges, like trying to find a complete steering assembly to replace the rather unsafe home made one, fabricated by an unknown owner in the 1970s after Land Rover had pulled out of the North American market. At that time genuine spares were very difficult to come by and very expensive. The really good thing was that despite a few of these ‘Cubanization’ bodges, the vast majority of the vehicle was still completely original.
“The chassis was in unbelievably good condition, complete with its original green paint, and required little work. Most of the paint on the aluminium body panels has disappeared, and there are all sorts of weird holes here and there, but that’s part of its history and I’ve left everything as it was. The wiring harness was fried which was explained by the fuses having been replaced at some stage by lengths of copper
"I couldn't quite believe it – 25 years after I first saw it, and after numerous failed attempts to buy it, it might finally be mine!"
tubing! I relied on experts for some things, like rebuilding the dynamo and the carbs, and the US Postal Service was kept busy for a while. The original engine and gearbox were found to be in great condition and reassembled with new piston rings and bearings. Hugh was kind enough to suggest that my vehicle might be the most original 80-inch in the United States. I’ve certainly done my best to keep it that way!
“Pat, my ever-loving and long-suffering wife of over 25 years, gave up her garden shed so that I could store components, and I took over most of the space in the garage. The extreme weather conditions in a typical Wisconsin winter make working on a vehicle all but impossible, but I’m proud to say that the Series I had its first test drive in March this year, even though the temperature outside was hovering around freezing.
“There were the usual minor shakedown issues but no major problems, and the Land Rover has been christened ‘The Charlie Mobile’ in recognition of our dear dog Charlie, who kept an interested eye on the restoration until he passed away last year at the aged of 16 and a half. After a bit of fettling we took TCM for its first major drive in early summer, a 100 mile drive around Lake Winnebago. The vehicle performed faultlessly and attracted a great deal of attention, which brought a huge smile to my face. Whatever JLR says about the Land Rover being the first vehicle ever seen by vast swathes of the world’s population, I can tell you that here in Wisconsin, most people have never seen one and don’t know what it is!
“I’m delighted to have completed the renovation and really pleased with the outcome. I’ve also enjoyed meeting so many passionate and knowledgeable Land Rover enthusiasts around the world. I really do feel part of a global community, and I’m grateful to everyone that helped me with advice and parts. And now I want to enjoy driving TCM before the Wisconsin winter stops play. Twenty-five years was a long time to wait, but Pat and I think it was well worth it!”