Land Rover Anniversary 75th Cooma The star of the show

An old weathered looking Oxford Series 1 will be the star of the show at the Land Rover 75th Anniversary event, and with good reason.

This particular Series 1 Land Rover was one of the original vehicles to take part in the 1955-56 Oxford and Cambridge Far Eastearn Expedition from London to Singapore.

The expedition was originally conceived as a promotional effort by Land Rover to showcase the Land Rover Series 1 Station Wagon, which waszs a substantial upgrade from the original Tickford model.

The six members of the expedition were all students of either Oxford or Cambridge Universities, including Tim Slessor, who served as a scribe and assistant cameraman on the expedition. Starting at Hyde Park in London, the expedition was flown to Europe and continued from France through Monaco, Germany, Austria,

Yugoslavia, Greece, Turkey, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Nepal, Burma, Thailand, Malaya and eventually onto Singapore.

The 18,000-mile overland journey covered tough terrain and was initially thought to be impossible. Travelling through terrain that varied from the jungle swamps of South-East Asia, to the searing deserts of the Middle East.

While the team brought supplies and equipment to help them survive the journey, the vehicles themselves were virtually straight off the production line, with only small modifications including a ’safari roof’ to keep cool, spotlights, winches and mounted jerry cans. Each of the vehicles was painted in the Universities shades of blue.

After six months and six days of travelling, the team finally arrived in Singapore, inspiring a generation of young explorers and firmly establishing Land

Rover’s reputation as durable off-road vehicles.

More than half a century later, in August 2019, original expedition member Tim Slessor and historian/filmmaker Alex Bescogy planned to take one of the original expedition vehicles and recreate the original journey in reverse.

On the day they were scheduled to leave Singapore, Slessor fell ill and was replaced last minute by his grandson Nat George. The journey took them 111 days and was the subject of both a book, and a Channel 4 documentary, each titled The Last Overland, in recognition of Slessor’s book The First Overland from the original expedition. The documentary aired on SBS in Australia.

So when you see the beat-up looking weathered blue little four-wheel-drive at the Cooma Showgrounds, keep in mind there are very few vehicles ever made that have endured more and travelled further than that humble 1955 Series 1 Land Rover.