Ploughing on

Words: Olly Sack

Pics: Vic Peel ut as we were saying, this e -council Series III turns that logic on its head. Series III, though? What’s with that front end? It’s clearly a Series IIA. h no it’s not. Look at the number plate. This dates from , so it’s a nailed-on III.

In the world of pick-up trucks, they say it’s best to avoid e -council vehicles. They reckon without e -council vehicles like this Series III.

The logic is that local authority fleet vehicles tend to be driven very, very hard by employees who, not to put too fine a point on it, don’t give a stuff about looking after them. y the time they’re sold on, they’ve had do ens of different drivers battering away at their engines, clutches, gearbo es, brakes and so on, their bodywork is likely to have taken as many knocks as their drivetrain and their interiors probably smell like a bus shelter on a Saturday morning.

Local authority maintenance schedules? Well, maybe. ut there’s a reason why the same people who warn you off e -council vehicles also say you can’t go wrong with an e -M one.

A III with a IIA front, though. That sounds interesting…

This is where the truck’s history comes in. It has a lot - not all of it documented, but it tells a tale.

There are fundamentally three stages of its life that we know about.

The first was with Stratford ouncil, who fitted it with a crane and snow plough. We’re guessing the amber beacon might date from back then, too, given the uses it was clearly intended to be put to if you’re not old enough to remember, ritain used to have proper winters back then .

We don’t know how long it spent looking after the public in times of trouble, but once the man from the corporation was done with it the Land Rover was sold locally. It gets a bit vague after this but we couldn’t find any sign of ld ars arts Ltd anywhere so we think the signwriting on the roof, along with the AA and RA badges, has been added later to build on the vehicle’s retro appeal. rom what we can tell, the was bought locally from the council by someone who did some sort of body-off ob on it. The chassis got some welding done, including the outriggers and spring hangers, and it lost the crane and snowplough but gained the livery you see here. When all this happened we’re not sure, so there’s a fairly big hole in its history, but what we do know is that when it came up for sale last year it had been generally recommissioned and made to look right. y that, we mean it remains in nicely aged paint, with the previous owner’s decor still there, but it’s been cleaned up and made to look the part in a period-piece kind of way. aturally, it’s in good mechanical order to match its solid frame too.

We don’t know when the Series IIA front end arrived, but we do know there’s a . -litre si -pot engine tucked away behind it. The drivetrain and running gear is all standard, though there’s a airey overdrive and a set of A M freewheeling hubs in place. It gained a set of one-tonne rims in the hands of the dealer who was offering it last year, with a variety of . s wrapped around them. ot that you can have a Series Land Rover without a period feel to it, but you know what we mean. This, and the various badges on the bodywork, might ust be there to set the tone but they do it very effectively. our mind might be telling you that they’re latter-day props, but your heart is right there with it as a ack of all trades in the employ of some rural garage in a bucolic shire. lich ? es. And what of it? So too is the one about e -council vehicles being bad news, after all. And if wonderfully cool old 109 can turn that one on its head, you can safely assume it’s going to write its own rules wherever it goes.

The dealer, istoric Motoring Solutions of Leicestershire, also did the rear main oil seal, carb, clutch which was sei ed and master and slave cylinders, creating a Land Rover that’s well above average to drive. There are moor seats to sit in while you’re doing so, and the same company’s hood covers the pick-up bed beneath which you’ll find a retro-style Esso jerry can to add further to the period feel.