LRM Classics
Vehicles, people and stories...
WELCOME to LRM Classics. This month we bring you a review of one of the rarest Land Rovers on the planet: an SAS Series I. Today, it is in the care of the Dunsfold Collection and is one of only two survivors of just ten that were modified in the mid-1950s in response to a War Office requirement. Dunsfold’s archive also houses original specification documents and demonstration guidance relating to the display of the prototype at the Fighting Vehicles Research and Development Establishment, Chertsey, in 1957. These old documents make fascinating reading and it is interesting to compare Dunsfold’s very original vehicle to see how it evolved from the specification of the prototype.
Our second feature this month is unashamedly personal, because it is about my very first Range Rover, a 1990 vehicle known (for obvious reasons, as you will see) as Syd. And the reason I’m telling the story now? Well, there are two reasons: one, because this year is the 30th anniversary of the day that I bought it, and 30 years is a long time to own a vehicle and we’ve been through a lot together; and two, because Alisdair Cusick, our regular ace snapper, was telling me recently about how much he enjoyed reading about Syd’s adventures back in the day, when he was presumably but a wee lad, when Nick Dimbleby and I spent a lot of time together off-road, trashing my nearly-new Range Rover! Madness, but I wouldn’t change it for the world.