Land Rover. Why does that name mean something to me? It’s not like I have crossed the Kalahari Desert in a Discovery II, at no point was I deep in the jungles of the Amazon relying on a Defender to get me home. To be perfectly honest, until recently I had no experiences at all in a Land Rover, be it crossing the Mongolian Steppe or picking up Mongolian BBQ on my way home. Even without the epic adventures, I have been infatuated with the Land Rover brand for a number of years larger than I care to admit and that infatuation has lead me to the recent revelation: I need to and can own a Land Rover.
I was raised on a farm with a very conservative family, which basically means my car knowledge at that point was Chevy, Ford, and Dodge. With an environment like that, I had never even heard the name Land Rover and I certainly had never seen one. It was probably like that up until college, when a friend opened my mind to a world bigger than I had known and probably was the one that first introduced me to the world of Land Rover. Shortly after that I went to my first car show and Land Rover was there. They had a Disco (though it could have been a Defender, it’s been years) up on ramps with the wheels articulated out and I was amazed. It was the coolest thing I had seen in a car (except for maybe this claw like cup holder that raised out of the center console in a Mercedes one year), wheels can do that without breaking!? Shortly after the car show I saw one of the few commercials (even to this day) that I have seen from Land Rover. I have always hated truck commercials. They talk about how tough they are while driving 30 MPH on a forest road that my college era Grand Am could have driven on. How is that cool or tough? Do they think we are so stupid that we can’t tell that road isn’t rough? Chevy had the “Like a Rock” campaign that at least had the trucks going through a potholed, muddy construction site, but for the most part every truck brand had terrible commercials, except for Land Rover. Their commercials showed the truck in a 3 feet of mud, bouncing up and down, drivers getting whiplash, frenzy of off road insanity (I wanted to find that commercial and link it here, but apparently everything is not yet up on youtube or my search skills are lacking).
Sometime after the car show and commercial, I saw pictures of the Camel Trophy. Wow. That any machine could make it through that, was just mesmerizing to me. That was the final straw, I was forever hooked on “The Go Anywhere Vehicle” (that may not bring you back). The problem I soon found out, was that this ultra-capable, go anywhere vehicle was also really expensive. For a poor college kid, to a just starting out in his career young adult, this brand of cars was way out of reach. So I put Land Rover out of my mind and went on with my life until a few things happened:
1 I got hooked on Top Gear. Love them or hate them, Top Gear was passionate about cars and it brought my passion for cars back, and with that passion the realization that I have never had a car to be passionate about. I had a lot of early career stumbles that left me with little cash, so cars always had to be cheap, practical, and reliable. I couldn’t afford repairs or even the car having down time. Now however, I wanted a car that I could be passionate about. I wanted an M3, a Vette, or dare I say it, I wanted a Land Rover.
2 I stumbled across Overland Journal and Expedition Portal. I am a photographer and have always thought about vehicles that could get me anywhere, so I could take photos and explore the great outdoors not surrounded by a bunch of tourists or constantly having to backpack 15 miles one way. Overland Journal and Expedition Portal brought me to the desire of a vehicle that could get me to middle of nowhere.
3 The final nail in my Land Rover coffin was Expedition Portal’s Scott Brady writing up an article on the best used vehicles for overlanding. In that article he mentioned how much more reliable Land Rovers, specifically the LR3, had become. Hold the phone! I can now afford a Land Rover and they are reliable(ish)???
Those things sealed my fate. I had to have a Land Rover, I was going to have a Land Rover. That declaration lead me to a much more complicated buying process than I would have imagined (more to come on that later), but I might as well start my Land Rover ownership with a few Land Rover related headaches. But those headaches aside, I was going to own automotive history and a vehicle I could finally be passionate about.
I was raised on a farm with a very conservative family, which basically means my car knowledge at that point was Chevy, Ford, and Dodge. With an environment like that, I had never even heard the name Land Rover and I certainly had never seen one. It was probably like that up until college, when a friend opened my mind to a world bigger than I had known and probably was the one that first introduced me to the world of Land Rover. Shortly after that I went to my first car show and Land Rover was there. They had a Disco (though it could have been a Defender, it’s been years) up on ramps with the wheels articulated out and I was amazed. It was the coolest thing I had seen in a car (except for maybe this claw like cup holder that raised out of the center console in a Mercedes one year), wheels can do that without breaking!? Shortly after the car show I saw one of the few commercials (even to this day) that I have seen from Land Rover. I have always hated truck commercials. They talk about how tough they are while driving 30 MPH on a forest road that my college era Grand Am could have driven on. How is that cool or tough? Do they think we are so stupid that we can’t tell that road isn’t rough? Chevy had the “Like a Rock” campaign that at least had the trucks going through a potholed, muddy construction site, but for the most part every truck brand had terrible commercials, except for Land Rover. Their commercials showed the truck in a 3 feet of mud, bouncing up and down, drivers getting whiplash, frenzy of off road insanity (I wanted to find that commercial and link it here, but apparently everything is not yet up on youtube or my search skills are lacking).
Sometime after the car show and commercial, I saw pictures of the Camel Trophy. Wow. That any machine could make it through that, was just mesmerizing to me. That was the final straw, I was forever hooked on “The Go Anywhere Vehicle” (that may not bring you back). The problem I soon found out, was that this ultra-capable, go anywhere vehicle was also really expensive. For a poor college kid, to a just starting out in his career young adult, this brand of cars was way out of reach. So I put Land Rover out of my mind and went on with my life until a few things happened:
1 I got hooked on Top Gear. Love them or hate them, Top Gear was passionate about cars and it brought my passion for cars back, and with that passion the realization that I have never had a car to be passionate about. I had a lot of early career stumbles that left me with little cash, so cars always had to be cheap, practical, and reliable. I couldn’t afford repairs or even the car having down time. Now however, I wanted a car that I could be passionate about. I wanted an M3, a Vette, or dare I say it, I wanted a Land Rover.
2 I stumbled across Overland Journal and Expedition Portal. I am a photographer and have always thought about vehicles that could get me anywhere, so I could take photos and explore the great outdoors not surrounded by a bunch of tourists or constantly having to backpack 15 miles one way. Overland Journal and Expedition Portal brought me to the desire of a vehicle that could get me to middle of nowhere.
3 The final nail in my Land Rover coffin was Expedition Portal’s Scott Brady writing up an article on the best used vehicles for overlanding. In that article he mentioned how much more reliable Land Rovers, specifically the LR3, had become. Hold the phone! I can now afford a Land Rover and they are reliable(ish)???
Those things sealed my fate. I had to have a Land Rover, I was going to have a Land Rover. That declaration lead me to a much more complicated buying process than I would have imagined (more to come on that later), but I might as well start my Land Rover ownership with a few Land Rover related headaches. But those headaches aside, I was going to own automotive history and a vehicle I could finally be passionate about.
