What or who is responsible for getting you into L/Rs

[justustwo]

What or who is responsible for getting you into L/Rs......my husband puts his right shoulder under my bum and heaves as I am 4 months pregnant and only 5'2" tall...thats not the worst bit he`s talking about not having a car seat just a bungy cord around our little one in the spare wheel carrier!!!!!..... LAND ROVERS!!!!!!!!!

[Exmoor Beast]

Could have sworn I'd posted on this thread when Tony started it

Anyway, we used to cadge a lift to school on a 109 S2 'milkfloat'

Later in life I saw a classic Car mag with a smart S1 and swore I'd have one one day when I wasn't doing starship miles or could afford a second car.

Fate one day saw fit to blow the tuned engine of my Golf GTi to smitherenes and I ended up buying a S3 to get to work until the Golf was fixed. the Golf got sold as it was and the S3 did 26,000miles the first year I had it, mostly without door tops.

eventually the S3 died and I sold it back to the chap I bought it from and went and found a '79 RR after much searching.

fatherhood costs more than RRs so the RR had to go to be replaced by my current 110 about 9 years ago. That was about the time I started using the forums and also got tangled up with the N30 trip like Tony

As well as the 110 we have had 3 (I think V8 Discoverys, 1 300TDi Discovery, a P38 4.0SE, another S3, a Freelander 1.8ES and now a S2 has joined us.

At the moment we have the 110, the Freelander, the 300 Disco and the Series 2.

Its been a fun ride so far...

Will

[landkeeper]

my uncle was the first culprit as he had a 88" series 1 diesel that was used as his main transport round the farm in meriden (im still looking for it)he used to bring me all over the place in it as a kid , then a madman i worked for after i left school who had a v8 lightweight with 9.00x16 tyres and an overdrive then a variety of land rovers provided by employers while i was gamekeeping including a series 2 swb truck cab that had a 2.6 6 pot fitted , rapidly learnt where not to drive and how to get out if you did as we usually only had one vehicle and the slaggin from farm workers when you get firmly stuck is awfull

now it's a variety of green oval products more for pure fun than practicality but i still run a 300 disco as an everyday farm/tow bus/shopping trolly

[jules]

Well as said by Jules and me . Our dad was the one that got us into Landys

Here is an old pic of Jules (on the left as you look at the pic) and me with our Dad and his new (at the time) beloved 110 ( one of the many he owned) . With my 1971 Range Rover 200 Tdi in the back ground

Most pictures we have as kids were taken with a land rover in the background or at least somewhere in the picture

I hadn't seen that pic

that 110 I bought off him years later it was brand new there. that was also the 110 my day asked me to park when we were at Billing show 93 or 94 and I disapared for four hours (I was 16 )

( In case anyone is wondering I'm on the left and Ali (reads90) is on the right with our late dad

[twizzle]

It's all down two my dad he started me off working on cars

when he first got a series 107 when i was 5-6 had it for 2 years

then went back to a mk11 cortina estate then got a series 2a 109 safari

that's the one in rebuilding know

(but ive still got the mk11 cortina estate)

TWIZZLE

[BogMonster]

Bouncing around in the back of a S3 since as far back as I can remember, being terrified of learning to drive in it aged about 12 because I couldn't turn the wheel, and then finding to my relief that the wheel turned a lot easier when the vehicle was moving then moving onto driving the farm's 90 and 110 when they arrived.

My first ownership experience was not a good one, after leaving school I bought an old S2 for £1000 that turned out to have a knackered engine and I sold a few months after I got it for £500 since then my technique has improved a bit and have since managed to sell one or two vehicles for as much as or more than I paid for them

My next owned LR was after returning from university when I picked up a tidy 200Tdi Discovery. Since then I've had a 3.9 V8 Discovery which I converted from manual to automatic, and the Discovery 2 4.0 auto that I still have, plus a 2.5 petrol 90, two 300Tdi 90's and the 300Tdi 110SW I currently have. A couple of deviations along the way include a car at university and a Ford Ranger that I run as the daily hack at the moment, but I've pretty much been in a green oval since I was born and as the hearse here is a converted 130, I guess I'll be going to the grave in one too

I do have a bit to do with them in my day job too ... anybody read the June LRM?

[Guest noggy]

Landrovers have always been in our family, my grandad had many landrovers, and what i first remember is when he had a 3.5 EFI range rover when i was about 4. 2 years later i remeber putting a fence up in a field in a 2.5td 90 (i actually ripped that fence up 4 weeks ago, very good fence )

That was the land rover that i think got me hooked, but for as long as i can remember ive always wanted a 4x4 and not some nancy boy ford fiesta like so many of my friends have got.

my dads first field car was a 80 inch series one, that is still parked up in a garage round back, siezed engine but very good chassis and body work.

Now i drive a 90td thats had a defender 200tdi dropped in that my dad bought for my 15th birthday. im now 18.

[Hitower]

For me it was my friend.

I started to go with him in is lr discovery 300tdi de 97...well the first time i was stuck in mud i loved every time...

then he changed for a defender and i continued to go with him....well...then the time has come and ist been a year since ive git the defender 90 300 tdi de 94...

[Gromit]

It's great to hear of all of you that have been in LRs since you were small. I was a late bloomer

I've a very early memory of one of the magazines with a defender on the front, winching up a hill I think. I remember thinking that it was just cool and always fancied a 4x4 of some sort. My first car, at 24, was a sensible 306 which I had for a few years.

Then when I decided to move to france, I needed something big to carry all my stuff for the move. After looking at a few vans, I decided that living with a van would be a bit soul destroying and then the idea of getting a LR suddenly popped into my head. After a bit of research, I learned what a 110 was and scanned autotrader for a few months and started reading the former incarnation of this forum.

When I went to look at the 110, not being used to them, it was a bit of an eye opener; dents, covered in mud, blue with one bright red door. Went for a drive around the local roads, which was a bit of a rush - fun, but vastly different to anything I'd driven. Then we put it in low range for a drive around the fields behind the sellers house. There were a few ruts and the like around the field and I was just astounded that we just trundled over them - that was it - hooked. B)

That was 6 years ago. The truck has got me round france and bits of italy, and now back to Ireland. It's been a huge and very enjoyable learning experience. It's been off the road twice for various reasons, and each time I've missed it so much. Last year my brother in law got a 110 too, which he also loves.

Funny how an inanimate object can become such a part of your life.

Edited to add the photo. This is pretty much as it looked when I bought it. Added wheels, lift and the 2 rear doors. Bro-in-law's 110 parked in front.

[landroversforever]

I do have a bit to do with them in my day job too ... anybody read the June LRM?

Ah HA! I know where you live

[Les Henson]

Lovely truck, Gromit - could do with a wash though

Les

[Gromit]

Lovely truck, Gromit - could do with a wash though

Cheers! Well, you can take a lot of credit for the fact that it still runs, drives well and gets serviced regularly; as can many many other LR owners around the world.

[v8bobber]

I think that someone mentioned fate but from my point of view it seemed pretty unavoidable.

My Dad now nearly in his 80s showed me pictures of him towing his caravan over with an 80" soft top, complete with soft top and his then kids shivering in the back. Apparently, a tooth broke off in the transferbox whilst decending some mountain and jammed the transmission. The weight of the caravan and the severity of the slope managed to push the little series one a few hundred metres down the mountain track. Once the swear words has ceased, the series one was reversed causing said geartooth to drop out which was then fished out from the bottom of the box. Never missed another beat. This was in 1959 or something.

By the time I came on the scene in the early 70's. a Series two was the weapon of choice and I nearly arrived in the back of it! I don't remember much about it as it was sold before much longer and it was the last Land Rover my father owned.

However, many years later, I made friends with a local boy who had a series 2 soft-top which our big group used for various activities including epic camping trips and numerous off roading adventures. A series 3 of my own soon followed in 1993 and i've had nothing but Land Rovers ever since. After the series 3, came a 90, then Range Rover Tdi and now P38 diesel, amongst other random LR vehicles. Current count stands at the P38, 300Tdi disco, a 2.5na 90, and a class 5 trialler in mid build. The condition appears to be worsening!!

Dave

[bill van snorkle]

My father, who actually never owned or drove a LandRover in his life got me interested in them when I was 7 yrs old.When we arrived in OZ from the UK in 1957 and purchased a 5 acre farmlet in the boondocks he pointed to a neighbours series one 107 truckcab and told me that we'll get one of those one day because they are built to take a beating. He never did get one, and for some obscure reason best known only to him he kept gravitating to awful, horrible, gutless, totally unsuitable and typically British early 1950's 8 or 10 horsepower Ford Anglia and Prefect sedans and breadvans. I was 15 years old before I got my first ride in a LandRover. I used to wag school alot in those days to go on marathon walks around Melbourne to find and crawl under and over any 4wd I saw parked on the road. Even in what was a relatively undeveloped country in those days 4wd's were relatively rare and I got to know almost every vehicle within a 5mile radius of my home.One day the owner of a 107 station wagon, appreciative of my interest gave me a ride up what at the time seemed like an impossibly steep and rutted hill and that ''sealed the deal'' as far as I was concerned.

Have LandRovers given me an enormous amount of enjoyment over the decades ? Certainly ! Have I made many friends and met many interesting people from all walks of life from around the world in the LandRover fraternity? For sure, and that really is the best part. Do I regret ever getting bitten by the LandRover as opposed to the Toyota bug? Every blinking day of my life

Bill.