Patched up

Fresh from a major lockdown refurb, Patch is a 2002 110 Hi-Cap with an interestingly varied set of colours on its body panels. There’s more to this Land Rover than just a comedy paint job, though – like a fully equipped demountable camping pod with everything including the kitchen sink and even its own log burner. And with the camping body removed, you can take it into the woods to collect all the fuel you need for a cosy home from home

Words: Tom Alderney

Pics: Ashton Radcliffe

One of the most common things you hear people saying about Land Rovers is that they’re like a blank canvas. Whether you want to build an off-road toy or a work truck, a street machine or anything from a mobile malaria clinic to a self-propelled bar, choose a good Defender and you’re made.

The same goes for living on board. For everyone that’s done it, there’s a different approach to making it happen – but while the spend-it-and-spec-it philosophy is undoubtedly popular among those who can, there’s a fantastic cul- ture of creativity among those who, by necessity or design, do it themselves.

This 110 Hi-Cap is a case in point. Dating from 2002, it’s the base for a demountable camping rig – which might distract you from the fact that the vehicle itself is a bit of a curiosity too.

It’s called Patch (gotta love a Landy with a name) and it’s the property of Ashton Radcliffe, who explains that it was a lockdown project built by ‘a talented young engineer and his girlfriend.’ Between them, the couple rebuilt the 110 using replacement wings and other body panels – which they painted in different colours, harlequin-style. This, as Ashton says, ‘makes it a rather distinguished and fun vehicle, much admired by many.’ Ultimately, it’s mainly blue. More could have been made of the multicoloured theme, perhaps, but at the same time you do look at it and smile. The camper pod doesn’t do any harm here – though if you were to see the vehicle naked, just a 110 Hi-Cap in various colours, it would get your attention that way too.

But it does have the camper pod on it, so let’s look further into that. This contains a kitchen with a sink and cooker, the latter supplied from gas bottles, and a water pump running from a bank of three five-litre containers. Electrics are taken care of by a leisure battery running off a split-charge system with a load-sensitive relay, which in turn is hard-wired to the vehicle itself.

So much for it being demountable, you’re getting ready to say. Well, Ashton reckons it takes less than 20 minutes to fully separate the two parts of the vehicle, with five of those going on disconnecting the electrics. In other words, they’ve thought of that. The de- mountable body is served by a camper blade fuse box running various circuits, including those for a 12-volt light set-up including remote switches with variable brightness settings.

The real coup de grace, however, is a wood burner. This, Ashton assures us, ‘makes the camper very warm even

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in deep midwinter.’ There’s an area for wood storage underneath it and a detachable flue up top which can be removed when travelling then installed prior to use to prevent any gruesome scenes involving carbon monoxide.

Looking around the inside of the pod, there’s a definite mixture of design influences. The wood burner looks wonderfully retro, as does a water tap made from gas pipe and kitchen cupboard fronts that look like they were jointed up from driftwood. The decor in the lounge area is nicely vintage, too, but then it’s centred around a fitted table that’s vintage in the might-havecome-from-MFI sense.

As with the rest of the vehicle, it was done to the restorer’s own taste. And unless you’re being paid handsomely for the job, why on earth would you do it any other way?

Taste varies, on the other hand, but what makes a good vehicle does not. And if you were to look at the various hues adorning on this 110 and assume it had been lashed up in an afternoon, how wrong you’d be.

‘Despite its colourful exterior,’ says Ashton, ‘the vehicle has been very well restored with a new wiring harness, rear light housings with new lens- es, a repainted chassis (no welding required), all new copper brake pipes and flexis and new front swivel joints and seals.

‘It’s had new vented discs all round, new heavy-duty shocks and springs, new Terrafirma steering arms and steering damper and a new steering drop and ball joint. Its bearings have been cleaned and repacked, its steering box resealed and its coolant flushed and replaced with OAT.’

In addition to all this, everything else that could be drained and refilled has been as part of the restoration – axle oil, gearbox oil, you name it. The 110 had a new bumper and transfer case, too, and was treated to a full engine service, including the fuel system, as well as a new wiper motor and spindles, indicator and wiper stalks, washer pump, overflow pipe and bonnet release cable. Phew.

Finally, the driver and passenger seats were recovered in material from Exmoor Trim. So, a wide variety of jobs that make up if not quite a full restoration, then certainly an extremely comprehensive refurbishment.

Nonetheless, it’s the sort of vehicle you might not take a second look at were it not for that camping body mounted on the Hi-Cap bed. And to make things even better, Ashton also has a twin-axle bathroom trailer with a hot water system (‘state of the art,’ he proudly claims), shower, basin unit and cassette toilet. Based on an Ifor Williams BV85, it goes behind the 110 to make quite the rig – and it’s a different colour to both the vehicle itself and the www.thelandy.co.uk live-in pod, so it keeps up the whole harlequin image.

Would it look better if the whole lot was painted to match? Possibly – but again, it all comes down to taste. But where’s the fun in blending in?

One of the things we all love about Defenders, after all, is that they make people smile. And if this one were less quirky, it might not make them smile as much. Besides, you’d not be able to call it Patch any more.

The 110 is currently for sale, priced at £16,000 with the demountable camper body. The bathroom trailer is available separately for £12,000. It’s based in Brechin and is advertised on page 28