The Six of Clubs
Patrick arranges a rather unique gathering of Defenders
Irecently organised the most unique gathering of Defenders ever to be held in the UK. It took place a week or two just before the November lockdown that has closed all nonessential shops and outlawed unnecessary travel. Back then we still had the rule of six. As luck would have it I could only find five owners of 2.8i Defenders that could make our exclusive little gathering. Add mine into the mix and suddenly the event was full up. For those that don’t know the 2.8i Defender was only sold in South Africa in the late 1990s and it has a BMW M52 petrol engine. According to Wikipedia it was the fastest production old-style Defender ever produced by Land Rover.
They produced less than 1500 2.8i Defenders and 26 of these were South African 50th anniversary type in Santorini Blue paint. Of those 26 anniversary types we had three in attendance at our gathering; they are the only three in the UK. Then there was my regular 1998 Defender 110 2.8i, Michael Dowman’s 90 which he bought at auction a year or two ago and Mike Rowland’s 90.
I had just driven down from a weekend of greenlaning in Shropshire to attend and the Green Mamba (as I like to call it) was anything but show-ready. In fact, it was covered in mud. Mike had to go from London to Cheshire to pick his 90 up before driving back to the gathering in Sandy, Bedfordshire. Paul Wells, who owns one of the Santorini Blue 50th 90s was our kind host for the day. The wide open spaces found on his countryside property meant social distancing was not a problem at all.
There is some speculation as to how many 2.8i Defenders there are in the UK but no one really knows. Rogers of Bedford were importing them at the turn of the century but to get the exact number is nigh impossible. I know of three people in the UK who each own two of them. Our technical contributor Trevor Cuthbert is one, the other wants to remain anonymous and the third is racing driver Ollie Jackson. He is so famous he has been on the cover
Never ever thought I would personalise a plate
of LRM twice. Ollie is currently restoring a 110 2.8i that he purchased from a friend of mine in South Africa. So he came in his beautiful 50th 2.8i (one of only three in the UK, remember) instead. The final member of our gathering was Marc Nijs, he was also the newest 2.8i owner in the UK. He recently purchased a 50th 2.8i from a dealer in Cape Town, and was the first person I bought a Defender from.
Yes, my first Defender was a 2.8i 90 and that is where the love affair began. I always tell people that if you drive a Land Rover the world is a very small place.
Paul had kindly arranged some coffee, tea and snacks while I fired up the gas Go-anywhere Weber BBQ and cooked some pork sausages for everyone. Land Rover gatherings without meat (this includes vegan sausages, of course, as we don’t discriminate) should be outlawed. The day literally flew by as we all discussed the trials and tribulations of owning a Defender that 99 per cent of the Land Rover workshops in the UK have never seen, let alone worked on. Ollie has owned his 90 since he was 18 and knew more than most of us, so it was great getting tips from him.
We also agreed that the global Whatsapp group for 2.8i owners was a godsend as you could literally get a pretty good diagnosis for any problem withing seconds. It was fascinating stuff really and we were all in agreement that this was to become an annual gathering and that we would be extending the invite to all 2.8i owners in the UK – provided we can trace them down, obviously. If you know of any please feel free to send me an email to patrick@lrm.co.uk.