Old Land Rovers Never Die

I first saw my current shooting vehicle when I parked my old Honda CB550/4 next to it at my grandmothers house.

Dad had just retired and bought it as a present to himself. It was in many ways a deliberate step backwards.

Dad drove a 1973 ‘Safari’ LWB petrol Land Rover when I was a child. We used to pack all our camping gear in it and head for Shell Island in Wales every August during my primary school holidays. Mum and Dad in the front seats puffing away on Benson & Hedges and us four kids laid flat on top of all the tents, bags and food in the back. Well, it was the seventies!

Dad loved that Land Rover and hated having to trade it for an autobahn-munching company BMW for the three decades he worked for Glaxo Welcome, now GSK, in Germany. As soon as he retired, he went to Liveridge and ordered an expedition vehicle.

It was a former Scottish Forestry Commission vehicle, a three door LWB 300 tdi , re-sprayed from the original white into a deep claret, with black detailing. The spec sheet from Liveridge noted ‘colour - any’ Dad wasn’t fussed about those kinds of details but he did stipulate a Webasto engine heater, twin fuel tanks and a solar panel on the roof to trickle-charge the twin batteries.

The back was fitted with a false floor in six removable ply-wood panels, with six black luggage boxes that slid underneath and provided organised storage and a sleeping or stowage floor above it.

Rear flood lights and a new headlining and floor lining completed the re-fit, along with rails along the back wall to provide for snap-on accessories or strap retainers. Inside the storage boxes he packed things like medical kit (he was a doctor), camping stoves, kettles, cutlery etc, tow rope, tool box, fire blanket, tyre inflator, spare wiper blades and all manner of other essential kit for artic expeditions.

He enjoyed taking it off to Finland, Norway or Sweden for little expeditions, he took it off-roading in Iceland and used to come to Exmoor for training weekends and learning new off-roading skills.

Unfortunately, by 2009 his Parkinson’s disease had rendered him unable to drive and he gave the Land Rover to me. I have kept it ever since and think of him every time I clamber into the left-hand driver’s seat (he had it converted for the continent).

I use it primarily as a shooting vehicle and for fetching firewood from the field and feeding the pheasants. It is now looking its age (it was made in 1998) and needs a new chassis. The doors have rotted out at the bottom, the passenger door only opens from the outside (useful for kidnapping hitchhikers) and the paint looks decidedly in need of a re-spray.

The interior is always dirty and the heater doesn’t really work, the seats are sagging and there are dents, bent bits and other irritations. In short, it is time for an overhaul.

I did spend five grand a couple of years ago getting the chassis welded and the steering, suspension, brakes etc sorted out but was told in no uncertain terms that I was on borrowed time. The chassis was at the end if its life.

At the end of the 2024 season I had just about enough funds in view to justify putting the restoration into action. My local car restorer is Tanc Barratt, who actually specialises in ground-up rebuilds of Lancia Deltas and Alfa Romeos but some of his boys know their Land Rovers and were up for the task. He has a superb workshop set up in Ludlow, just five minutes from my door. He used to look after my Bentley so I’ think a Defender is well within his abilities!

After a season of traversing muddy fields and woods, the old Defender was caked in layers of Shropshire clay. The first job was to wash all that off. Then, I had to dismantle all the extra modifications I had put in the back- namely the fitted dog bed made from scaffold boards and the false floor set-up and dog guard. While doing so, and sweeping out the wheat that had been spilt while pheasant feeding all winter, I made a young rat that had been happily living under the false floor homeless.

I had ideas about various niceties but most of those I can fit myself so I decided not to be lazy and leave those for the moment. The nice thing about Land Rovers is that they are basically Meccano and very easy to take apart and re-assemble or modify.

I purchased a new galvanised chassis from Richards and, as luck would have it, Tanc decided I probably needed a new bulkhead as well, so that came along shortly afterwards and Tanc’s sprayer got to work preparing and painting those..

I had planned to do the exterior painting myself but since the sprayer said he would do the job for £1,000, if I supplied the paint and did the preparation, I thought that too good an offer to refuse.

As we stand, the chassis and bulkhead have been sprayed Light Bronze Green and the old hulk has been delivered to the workshop in Ludlow to be dis-assembled. I anticipate the delivery of the body panels for me to begin rubbing down and de-greasing ready for the spray gun to begin its work.