Motoring
Prove me wrong
Alan Judd
The new Range Rover arrives today. It's not mine, unfortunately, but belongs to the manufacturer and is on loan for a week's test. In this execrably hot muggy weather, anything with air conditioning gets the award of the golden spanner. I shall probably move into it.
That said, I may as well get my Range Rover prejudices off my chest. Next month's article could be a glowing report, but the beast will have to work a bit to achieve it, since my history with Range Rovers has been more expensive than extensive and the joys of ownership not unalloyed. My first was an early model, circa 1972, built when they were still thought of partly as a working vehicle, with plastic seats contributing to an interior you were supposed to be able to clean with a hose. It was second-hand but had been well looked after, and the only early problem I recall was that the wipers worked in the dry — I tested them when I was buying it but not in the wet.
When that was fixed, it was shipped at taxpayers' expense to South Africa where the Foreign Office, perhaps in anticipation of the Care in the Community programme, had sent me. It took months rather than weeks to arrive, and when the Soviet-style South African bureaucracy eventually per- mitted me to regain possession, I found it was out of petrol. It then had to be adjust- ed for motoring at altitude, after which I felt I could begin to enjoy it. Whatever else may be said about Range Rovers, that regal driving position is incomparable. Cruising across the high veldt into the sun- set, smugly wearing your new veldschoen and anticipating a good dinner, makes you feel that life is more than all right. It was the only time I've experienced an engine seizure, and even now the causes remain obscure. No warning lights, drop in oil pressure, rise in temperature — noth- ing, until it happened. The 3.5 litre V8 was a well-proven, long-lasting lump, not prone to that sort of behaviour. The garage `They say he's related to Houdini.' blamed a gasket, but with that you'd have expected some sort of warning. I blamed sabotage by sinister forces.
Eventually I had to have a new engine fitted, but by that time the Foreign Office had abandoned its Care in the Community experiment and had re-institutionalised me in London, whither — courtesy of the tax- payer — the Range Rover followed me. I sold it to some friends, who then went to Luanda. The taxpayer again obliged and, after months of being held up in the har- bour, it joined them, only to be hit by a lorry. It was repaired, sold for a whopping profit (which I did not at all begrudge, being only too grateful that they'd taken it off my hands for more than I'd asked for it) and then, I believe, driven over a mine. I fear it's still going, though. It's the sort of rough beast that will one day, somehow, drag itself back to me.
It may indeed have been reincarnated into my second Range Rover, a 1983 model which cost the proverbial arm and leg in repairs just before it was stolen (Motoring, 14-21 December, 1996). That continues its loathsome existence, at least in official terms. The police tried to prosecute the thief who stole it from the thief who stole it from me, but the Crown Prosecution Ser- vice dropped the case and I've now been offered counselling.
I don't blame the Range Rover for being stolen but the cost of those repairs and an average of 13 mpg do say something about the breed. Mine was old and a three-speed automatic, but they've always been expen- sive to buy and expensive to run, the latter more so than they should be. It was a bril- liant design; yet, as they have become more complicated, they seem to have become less durable. I hear worrying tales about the electronics on the new sort which, if true, are inexcusable. How dare anyone charge between 35 and 50 grand for a product that doesn't work perfectly?
Also inexcusable were all those years with only two doors and, eventually, only a half-decent diesel. Nor am I convinced that the new BMW diesel is really up to the job; they should long ago have taken a leaf out of the Landcruiser's book and put in a hefty four-litre.
The old sort rolled and swayed a bit on corners (though they were always more sta- ble than they felt), but I'm told the new ones have sorted that out. We'll see. For all their size, I wonder if there's much room in them now. Everything inside has got bigger and, lacking the roof height of the Discov- ery, they look as if they could be slightly cramped.
So much for my prejudices. It may be that after ten minutes behind the wheel have forgotten or forgiven everything. Some people are like that about repeatedly falling in love, but with me it's cars. You have to forget or forgive to keep on buying them, otherwise I'd never have got up to 59 of the things. Number 60 ought to be some- thing special. Suggestions welcome.
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