THE EVERGREEN LAND ROVER PHILIP PARKER’S METICULOUS RESTORATION OF A SERIES 2 LAND ROVER — THE VERY BEST KIND — DELIGHTS EVERYONE THAT SEES IT BY IAN PARKES
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f Helensville-born Philip Parker is right about this — and there’s no reason to think he isn’t — this is a sight we will see a lot more of: no-expense-spared, fully restored Land Rovers. Since Jaguar Land Rover stopped making the Defender in 2016, ending a near 70-year run of the original recipe Land Rover, the value of these cars has continued to rise. The new 90 and 110 Land Rovers launched last year only really underscore the point. While they have interiors that pay tribute to the Land Rover’s utilitarian origins — trim fitted with exposed screw heads and so on — they are tricked out with every modern convenience so will be equally at home battling the rugged terrain of Remuera as the manicured hinterland of Central Hawke’s Bay
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Auto Channel Issue #44 March 2022
and Canterbury. In reality, they are much more of a tribute to the original Range Rover than the Landy. They even look a lot more like a Discovery than a Defender. Certainly chemicals and fracking magnate Sir James Ratcliffe — whose Ineos organisation backed the UK America’s Cup challenge and who owns the Ineos Grenadiers cycling team (formerly Team Sky) — thinks Land Rover missed the mark with the new vehicle. It left a large enough gap in the market for him to create his own version of a heritage Land Rover in the upcoming Grenadier fourwheel drive. But of course only the Land Rover is the original, and the growing affection for that classic vehicle currently knows no bounds.
The recent visit to New Zealand of ‘Cambridge’ gave some indication of the depth of the affection for them here. Cambridge was one of the two Land Rovers that students from Oxford and Cambridge drove overland to Singapore in 1955, at one stroke establishing Land Rover’s global reputation as the expedition vehicle. Cambridge attended several car shows here including the Ellerslie Car Show but it was much more on home turf at the Wanaka Wings and Wheels event in April, as reported here last month. The man who engineered the car’s visit here (also organiser of the time trial event for classic cars
in the Targa New Zealand), Rod Corbett, decided to arrange a little safari through the South Island high country for Cambridge in company
Only the Land Rover is the original and the growing affection for that classic vehicle currently knows no bounds
