Practising what he preaches

Kim Palmer’s day job is PR manager for Land Rover UK – and in his downtime he loves driving a 1949 Series I

ONE OF MY earliest memories is of riding with my father in a Land Rover that he had on test for his job in the avionics industry, although it’s fair to say that, until I joined JLR in 2014, I wasn’t particularly interested in them. But I was lucky to work with ‘Mr Land Rover’, Roger Crathorne, for the last five or six years of his time in the company’s PR department, and he got me into driving some of our heritage-fleet Series Is. I had an absolute ball and just loved the whole experience.

So, when I saw this 1949 example for sale on an Australian website at Christmas 2017, I asked his advice and he told me to go for it. Like a lot of Aussie Series Is, it had been fitted with a Holden straight-six at some point in its life and I was worried that this might count against it – but Roger said not: it’s all part of the vehicle’s history. And with double the capacity of the original Rover 1600cc engine, and twice the power and torque, it goes really, really well!

The decision to buy a car in Australia was made because my cousin was importing a 6x6 Perentie Land Rover and had some spare space in a 40ft shipping container. I wanted as early a car as possible – this one was built in September 1949 – and one that had been made in Solihull, not exported as a CKD kit. For me, that’s all part of the romance: bringing a Land Rover back around the world to where it started life.

Jon Holmes, of Cross Channel Classics, recommissioned and repaired it for me. He’s a young guy, really enthusiastic, and did a great job. The chassis needed some minor repairs and the bulkhead had to be replaced, but I’m very keen that the history of the vehicle can be ‘read’ easily – so new parts are freshly painted and not artificially patinated to look old. Most of the panels are original, though the canvas tilt is a new one from Undercover Covers.

The day I collected the Landy from Jon was really exciting. My colleague Michael Bishop from JLR’s Classic Works, who is himself an Aussie and a Series I owner, came down to help with the five-hour drive back, but the car didn’t miss a beat. It was an incredibly hot day and we had to stop to let it cool down for a while, but that was mainly because I had my foot to the floor along the A34 dual-carriageway! A last-minute addition during the build was a Toro mechanical overdrive, and that has transformed its cruising ability.

I’m now really keen to find out more about its history in Australia. The original bulkhead was painted red, and the doors show red paint inside – so was it originally a fire engine, used for fighting bush fires? Mainly, however, I just want to keep driving it – and to get my partner Becci driving it, too. I can see her becoming a classic Land Rover kind of girl.