Never Text Your Ex!

One of the best pieces of advice in life is: Never text your ex!

I would like to propose that this should not just be taken in the context of a significant other that you may have shared intimate moments with, it should also apply to cars, trucks and bikes!

It is fair to say that most of us, at some point, will have wondered what happened to that beautiful creation that you once shared your life with, that you lavished your wages on, that you got involved with despite all the advice from your mates and probably caused you a certain amount of sleepless nights. Yes, I am still talking about vehicles!

Like me, if you’ve driven Land Rovers your ownership experience will have definitely involved some of the more sweary vocabulary. Your wallet will have also been emptied to cover the expense of items that were not even itemised on your to-do list before they broke, expired, imploded or otherwise gave up.

However, we move on, we sell the heap of crap and buy another one, usually just as unreliable and costly - cue smug sniggers from our readers who don’t buy Solihull shite. After a while we can think back to the good times, the days when nothing broke, when everything just worked, and, in a similar fashion to the way you can never quite remember how bad toothache feels once the dentist has pulled the offending gnasher, we long to see the old girl again.

Having an interest in a niche motoring sector like 4x4s means crossing the path of the new victim, sorry, owner of your previous ride, is not that uncommon, and so it is with me.

I know the whereabouts of several of my previous Land Rovers...

The one I owned the longest, a 1996 Land Rover Discovery 300TDi, is still in the family. I bought it ex-demo and added 185,000 miles to the odometer before it was involved in an accident (not my fault).

I bought it back from the insurance company who deemed it unworthy of repair and two members of my family have struggled to keep it alive for the past five years. I believe it is currently off the road due to a total inability to drive in a straight line!

I also had a 1984 Land Rover 110 which I bought from a landscaping company. It was their runabout hack, and despite looking like a total shed, benefitted from a 200TDi retro-transplant and a galv chassis. It was at one of the last great Billing Land Rover shows that, on a whim, I placed a ‘For Sale’ sign in the window. Within a few hours it was sold!

A few years later I saw it again at the LRO show in Peterborough. The new owners had done a lot of work to it, and used it as a weekend camper for attending events. It looked fabulous.

One of the more unusual Land Rovers I owned was a Series II Ambulance which I actually got for free. A neighbour had it sitting on his driveway for several years and it hardly ever moved. Then I heard that he was trying to get rid of it and just wanted someone to take it away. Well I transferred it from his driveway to my Nan’s driveway, and it sat there for a few more years while I figured out what to do with it.

In the end I decided to place a ‘make me an offer’ advert on one of the forums, and that truck didn’t hang about either. I still see it at events from time to time, thankfully in a much better state than when I had my name on the V5.

The last one is the only one I ever really regretted selling, my Defender 130 Azalai Camper. This was built for us by a French Company, and we enjoyed several family holidays and road trips all over Europe. For personal reasons, *cough* Divorce! *cough*, it had to be sold. A couple from New Zealand bought it and spent over six months touring Europe in it before selling it again.

When I saw it re-advertised I was very sorely tempted, but just didn’t have the money (mostly down to the aforementioned divorce that was still ongoing, and draining me of all liquid assets).

I lost track of it after that. There were a few rumoured sightings over the next couple of years, but I thought it had just been driven into the sunset by an overlanding enthusiast.

Until just a few weeks ago when I received a message on Instagram asking if I knew anything about Azalai Defender campers, from a bloke in Japan!

He’d bought it and had it shipped over. This prompted me to follow him on Instagram (@defender130overland) and see where he’d been, which instantly depressed me more than anything.

He was enjoying it the way I was supposed to have done.

I still see the updates, it has undergone some very nifty modifications since I had it, but it is mostly the same. I’m sure it is now been sworn at in Japanese, but I still miss it.

Has anyone else bought back a vehicle they’d previously owned?

(I should add, just for clarification, and in case my current significant other reads this - I have never texted an ex!)

Defender 130 photos courtesy of @defender130overland

Words & photos - Simon Hastelow