A new toy in the drive way…

I’ve lived through something over 15,000 days and the indicators are there that I’m growing up – ear hair, friends who don’t wear sneakers all the time, mortgage, fewer t-shirts with rude messages on them and perhaps most telling of all the thought that perhaps I should get a practical car.

The last one was a particular surprise to me, especially as one of the reasons I tried to justify it with reasoning that only added to the already high WTF value. I thought it would be great, “I’ll be able to haul stuff back from the DIY store…” This was particularly shocking, Dad hauls stuff home from the DIY store. OK not recently what with the whole in hospital thing, and certainly not in his tiny Hyundai, but he used too and he’s old…

Old people do that and I’m not… The pause was followed by an out loud “oh fuck” as the denial bubble burst, I might just be… Middle age…

So now I‘m through the denial, what sort of “practical” car to get. It will be sharing space with the Miata once it’s repaired after being hit and vandalized. And lets be clear, that’s not the manliest car around so it needs to provide a little more “Arggg! me man” credibility than its stable mate.

I have these bizarre pretensions of being an outdoorsy manly man, there is a certain amount of evidence that it’s just not me now. Exhibit A is the fact that I’m not a huge fan of camping. I went through that phase in my teens and early 20’s, when I did all sorts of adventurous things like hiking portions of the Appalachian Trail in Tennessee after watching Deliverance and staying under nylon in the jungles of Malaysia.

OK, so back to the car – it’s got to have four wheel drive and proper off road credentials, so thankfully we’ve eliminated mini-vans, most SUV’s and boring regular cars. Although I do think an ex-police Crown Vic would be a fun car to own, people would let you out into traffic more often for a start.

I can’t afford a newish Range Rover, actually not true as I was once again shocked by how much the bank was willing to trust me with when I applied for a loan. So I could afford a new Range Rover but the idea of a $1000 car payment every month is so ridiculous to be inconceivable to me.

A Jeep wrangler would be OK, I’ve known people who own them, not really what you’d call super practical but with the back seats removed there is a little room back there. I’m not sure I qualify for one as I don’t own a dog, judging by those I know it seems to be a requirement, for some reason it’s almost always a golden Lab.

My boss owns a Grand Cherokee and hates it. The car has spent more time being fixed than it has on the road in the last year. That’s out, though he did snigger when he found out what I ended up buying.

When I start thinking about proper 4WD off-roaders, it turns out the list is actually rather limited. Nissan X-terra is sort of there, but a little basic inside. Some models of the Toyota FJ have off-road pretensions, but the interior looks like it came out of the Fisher Price toys for 3-5 year old catalogue.

VW has the Toureg, the only ones available around at a price I’m interested in paying are clearly thrashed or have frighteningly high mileage (how do you put 175000 miles on a 4 year old car and not be a sales rep?). Much the same story for Porsche Cayenne, there are a few around the top end of what I want to spend on a second car. But the same stuff that applied to the Touregs (and they are essentially the same car) but more so, with the added bonus of buttock clenching insurance rates.

So with a certain inevitability we are back to the Land Rover stable, in the mid 90’s I shared a student house with Mark, a former Land Rover mechanic from Jersey (the island, not state) and he swore everything LR made other than the Range Rover was junk.

I totally disagree, I’ve run a mid 90’s range Rover, most of the time was junk. It was not a well maintained version when it arrived and spent its days marking its territory with a succession of oil leaks, head gasket failures and suspension problems. However, on those rare moments it was working it was awesome and maybe the best car I’ve ever driven.

I do recall Mark having a certain begrudging admiration for the second generation Discoveries. The off-road credentials are very certainly there (its got a proper transfer case), the interior is rather nice and it’s practical. Reliability was not perfect, especially on the early ones, so finding the right car is important.

The DNA of the car can be traced back to the original Range Rover (known as the “classic” in RR circles) and that must have been doing something right as it was in production for 25 years. Incidentally, the depreciation on most Land Rover cars is absolutely astounding, but in this case it works in my favour if I can find the right one.

So a late Discovery, with full dealer service history, all recalls fixed (and there were a few), clean car fax report and lowish miles. Should not be too hard.

Famous last words…

Actually the right car turned up at a local dealer after a few weeks, only problem was the dealer wanted stupid money for it. I spoke to one of the salesmen who said they might find a little wiggle room on the price. I wanted them to find a shit load of wiggle room. The test drive showed everything was in order, it looked good and except for the price this was exactly what I was looking for. I told the dealer what I thought it was worth, he tried to bargain to see what they could do to get me in that car on that day.

I made it clear what my offer was and told them to call if they can meet it.

There are all sorts of stats about what happens once a customer walks out of the dealership, essentially the chances of them coming back is remote at best. We had a couple of phone conversations over the following days, I said I’d come in at the end of the month and see if they were more willing to deal then.

Unlike previous dealer experiences, my bargaining with Bellevue Land Rover and Jaguar was nothing but professional. They knew I was serious, had the loan lined up and was not in a rush. Eventually they met my price. They sold a used car and I had what I was looking for. Everyone was happy.

So now I’m the proud owner of a 03 Land Rover Discovery. In typical Land Rover style it’s quirky, things are slightly different to keep the LR traditions alive. I’ve already had my first spate of warning lights; (ABS, Traction Control and Hill Descent Control) coming on and just as quickly going away.

As Jeremy Clarkson believes owning an Alfa Romeo is a requirement to call yourself a petrolhead, I think owning a Land Rover should be on that particular checklist too.

Today was the All British Field Meet at Bellevue Community College. For those not in the know this is a chance for all the owners of various marques of British cars to come together and bitch about reliability and discuss the minutia of restoring and keeping British cars running (as I’ve said before, some of the worst cars ever built came out of British factories from the late 60’s through to the early 80’s).

It’s an anoraks paradise. The place was wall to wall with Astons, MGs, Hilmans, Morgans, Rolls Royces, Rovers, Austins, Minis, TVRs, Jags and even a lone Sterling (a British car model never actually sold in Britain). There were over 200 cars there in total.

There seemed to be two types of owner, those that appreciated and drove their cars, and those who had slightly lost the plot, were deep in discussions about matching VIN numbers and trailered their cars everywhere.

I should add now the Land Rover owners were all in the first category, every one of the 15 or so Land Rovers were driven, some daily.

The second type of owner does scare me slightly. I’m guessing it’s probably a good outlet for the OCD of the world, continually fussing over the lightest detail in order to make their car perfect, to make it the same as the day it rolled out the factory. Truthfully, I don’t think the factory fully knew what they were building sometimes, and the more “exclusive” the marque, the less likely they were to leave the factory exactly per the spec sheet.

The Land Rovers were well represented by the Pacific Coast Land Rover Group. There were Series II, Series III (I learned to drive in a Series III, a long time ago) and Defenders along with various models of Discoveries and Range Rovers in all sorts of states of modification. A couple were set up for long overland adventures; impressively one had been to Argentina and back.

I’m happy with my purchase, but it’s time to get it dirty and the Pacific Coast Land Rover group seem more than happy to help with that.