Farmers’ friends
Winter in the countryside is when no-nonsense Defenders come into their own, as Dave explains
IS it my imagination, or does my Ninety look forlorn? Thanks to lockdown it has been spending far too long standing idle – most likely the least it’s been driven since it rolled off the production line at Lode Lane, Solihull, in 1984. Unlike mere humans, genuine working vehicles like Land Rovers don’t need a holiday.
It’s very frustrating during a period of proper Land Rover weather. My valley has seen the worst flooding since 1998 and the sharpest cold snap for a few years. But I’ve stuck to the rules; my only recent outing being a trip to the other end of the village to tow a trailer and transport a fallen ash tree for my neighbour’s grown-up lads, Jack and Sam Belton, who plan to slice it up into raw material for home-crafted chopping boards and the like. They’ve also promised to make me a rustic house sign for my cottage.
Of course, the proper working Land Rovers – the local farmers’ Defenders – are as hard at work as ever. The other morning on my early morning walk with Billy the Wonderdog I bumped into my farmer mate, Martin. Like me, he’s an early riser, and the first sign of life I hear most mornings is the familiar rattle of a Td5 engine as he heads off in his Defender 110 hi-cap pick-up to feed his sheep, with bale of straw and buckets of feed under the inevitable Ifor Williams canopy.
I mentioned a few months ago how Martin had traded in his Discovery 3 for his Defender. A lifelong Land Rover driver, who has owned countless Series and Defender models, the Disco had been his only venture into the comfort zone, but he had quickly learned that carpets and swanky interiors didn’t appreciate the daily application of layers of sticky Northamptonshire mud. Now he’s happy as a pig in swill as his white Defender gets splattered (pictured above). Defenders look best muddy, don’t they?
Martin says he’ll stick to Defender from now on – and he doesn’t mean new Defender. Or even the TDCI models that were the last of the old ’uns in production. No, the Td5 is his choice – and that of fellow farmers, too, who like its robust simplicity. Martin tells me of another local farmer who has just bought two low-mileage Td5 Defenders, which he is storing in his barn not as collector’s pieces, but as an insurance policy: future working vehicles in case his current Td5 Defenders wear out.
Out here in the countryside, vehicles with unnecessary gadgets and trickery aren’t welcome. Farmers want a working vehicle that’s simple, reliable and can be serviced either by the farmer’s own maintenance men or, in the case of smaller farmers like Martin, the local garage. Franchise dealerships aren’t the natural haunt of farmers – and are unlikely to be any time soon, unless Land Rover brings out a no-frills model, which I
can’t see happening, more’s the shame.
I read this week that new car registrations in the UK were at a 30-year low in 2020, thanks to the national lockdowns, which had cost the car industry £20 billion (and counting). No surprises there, then. With so much uncertainly caused by a pandemic, plus confusion over the future of EVS, hybrids and good old-fashioned petrol and diesel, a massive slump was inevitable.
Nobody’s going to invest in a new car if they don’t know if they’ll still have a job in a couple of months. And those that do take that leap of faith then face the challenge of ascertaining what the politicians will decide next with regard to modes of propulsion. Last year, the government brought forward the end of fossil-fuel car sales by a hefty ten years. What’s to say they won’t trim another few years off in the future?
The future does not look bright for the sales of any new cars, but for petrol and diesel models the lights have already gone out. And guess which manufacturer is way behind the curve when it comes to EVS? Yep, it’s Land Rover.
Trying to sell diesels and petrols must be like flogging Windows 7 computers. It’s yesterday’s technology. But I don’t blame JLR: they were positively encouraged by the government to build their new engine factory in Wolverhampton, specialising in petrol and diesel engines. But, these days, politicians change the rules overnight if they think it will make them more popular with voters.
It doesn’t make them more popular with me, that’s for sure. My 28-year-old diesel Ninety is testament to my views on new cars. Like the local farmers, I’ve decided that it is my car for life and, although I don’t rule out the possibility of it being joined by one or two other Land Rovers along the way, any future additions to my fleet will most likely be propelled by diesel or petrol.
This boycott of modern vehicles is tinged with sadness, because I realise the significance of this sea-change. It is of great concern to me that farmers have given up on modern Land Rovers. After all, the original Land Rover was built for them. The whole success story that is Land Rover was built upon the honest foundations of simple but tough, no-frills workhorses, not fancy-dan mobile gin palaces for rich people with questionable taste.
These days, JLR doesn’t seem too concerned about losing its traditional customers, but as we emerge into a very different post-coronavirus world, I hope it doesn’t regret it.