I was visiting a friend yesterday, and he pulled out his newly restored Land Rover to show off. It is, I believe, a 1963 Series IIA, and beautifully restored over a period of several years.

He let me drive it around the yard, then we took a ride a short ways up the road; after all the years and money he's put into this, he's still pretty jumpy about taking it out on the roads where there are cars...

It's a strange vehicle to sit in; in many ways the operating experience reminds me of a tractor more than a car, with the way the switches and controls are layed out, and the way the driver sits high and close to the wheel and pedals (no adjustment). Also, it's a tiny little thing, but takes as much planning to turn as a crew-cab pickup- no power steering (which I'm somewhat used to), and a humongous turning radius, probably due to the 4wd mechanism.

I don't have any pictures of his, but it looks like this, in a slightly different color:

I've always thought those were cool little things. What's his plans? To show it and such?

yeah ive always loved those old land rovers.

I hear Chris talking about the MG, then Ian about a Land Rover. You guys remember who won the war?

Just kidding! I love em too!

TheRoadVirus said:

I've always thought those were cool little things. What's his plans? To show it and such?

Click to expand...

I think he'll mostly drive it around... Once it's got a few years on it, he might take it off roading a bit, but right now he doesn't want to scratch it up too bad.

For those who aren't familiar with these things, here's an example of how user-serviceable they're designed to be: the intake manifold has the firing order cast into it, so you can figure out how to put the wires back onto the distributor if they're all disconnected.

A lot of older Ford v-8's are like that.

As opposed to my truck, which has twice as many plugs as cylinders, no hints under the hood, and somewhere in the life of that engine, Ford reversed where on the front coil pack the wires for two and three go...

Gotta love that old stuff that was actually designed to be repairable.

Land Rover joke:
It's the only vehicle guaranteed to break down repeatedly on any trip off the property, and STILL get you where you're going every single time.

And, since we also mentioned MGs, a Lucas electrical joke*:
Did you ever hear about the Lucas vacuum cleaner?
It's the only thing they ever made that didn't suck.

*Lucas is the company that made the parts that made British cars famous for electrical problems.