Might be the best video yet on the Land Rover. A BBC piece that takes you back to the very beginning.
Early history of Land Rover
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Category Archives: Land Rovers
Marketing vintage Land Rovers
While I wait (patiently) for the restoration of my truck, I’m feeding my jones with YouTube videos. There is a lot of Land Rover porn on YouTube. Loving (amateur) restoration videos that bring a tear to the eye. Some are commercial in nature. But nobody matches the quality and creativity of the guys at Cool & Vintage. These are the folks in Lisbon, Portugal that first hooked me on Land Rovers. I’ll never know how good they are at restoration but they’re damned good at marketing. Whoever shot and edited this video knows what she/he is doing. You can see some of their photos here.
Equipment to carry in your Land Rover
Mostly common sense items but some I wouldn’t have thought of. For my future reference.
Sorcerer
1977 American thriller film directed and produced by William Friedkin and starring Roy Scheider. (Wikipedia)
Advantages of Diesel Engines
I’ve never owned a vehicle with a diesel engine so I know nothing about them. Except that my Land Rover will have one (rebuilt). My first thought was “uh oh” but it turns out diesel is a good thing.
“Because they are more efficient, diesel engines release less waste heat while in operation. Diesel engine parts are generally stronger than gas engine components, and diesel fuel has superior lubricating properties. As a result, diesel engines tend to last twice as long as gas-powered ones.”
I’m told it will take a bit longer to start my truck if left parked in the cold while I sip espresso but that’s only an issue if one has somewhere one must be.
Why the Land Rover Defender costs $70K
I started my search looking for a Defender 90 but a few weeks in fell in love with the Series model. This cheeky video explains why an old Land Rover Defender costs $70,000. My favorite line: “Jeeps are for people who get in arguments over iPhone vs Android.”
Hardtop or Soft Top?
Today I learned my truck is being restored as a soft top, even though it started life as a hardtop. This might be a California thing since it’s being restored in San Diego. Nice and warm out there year round, why wouldn’t you want a ragtop? And I’ll be fine with that, Missouri winters be damned (and I’ll rarely be on the road more than half an hour). And it was soft tops that got me started down this (off) road. Every Land Rover that got me tingly (see below) had a soft top.
I included the hardtop for comparison. And the more I see the hardtops, the more I like them. I’m hoping there’s a way I can have both. These trucks seem pretty modular and a guy with the right set of wrenches could probably switch ’em out a couple of times a year. This guy seems to be having a great time without a top.
Land Rover Series 3 Overview
Why a Land Rover?
Cars too precious to drive
I had lunch with my friend and former co-worker, Phil, a couple of days ago. Phil is a polymath in the truest sense of the word and one of the smartest guys I know. And he owns a 1970 GTO that he restored so I wanted to get his thoughts on my Great Land Rover Adventure. He asked if I planned to keep my MINI and expressed some concern when I said I did not. Why would I need two cars, I asked?
A little background. Phil spent countless hours and not a little money restoring his GTO. His first car as a teenager was a GTO so it has a lot of sentimental value. So it’s a lot more than a vehicle for getting around town. He certainly wouldn’t drive it up and down the gravel road that leads to my house. There are other considerations, of course, but I got the strong sense that ‘having’ the GTO is more important than ‘driving’ it. (Another co-worker has a restored ’67 Camaro and it stays in the garage most of the time, too)
When Mr. Wolf locates that perfect Land Rover (and fixes it up), I’ll have no such investment. No sweat equity. No ’skin in the game’ as they say. It will be the only vehicle I own. If it gets dusty and dinged coming up my hill… well, so did the MINI. If it gets dented, I’ll have it fixed.
Who knows, perhaps I’ll come to feel differently about my Land Rover after a while. But leaving it in the garage while I drove my ‘other’ car would feel like keeping my dog in a kennel and only taking her out for a walk on weekends.