paulatthehug
New Member
- Posts
- 4
I'm reminded that, having posted here on another thread, I really should get around to introducing myself. I've been pottering around with Landies for about twenty years now starting after having a seizure, so I lost my licence for a year, and hence my company car (to be fair I did get a pay rise to compensate so I'm not complaining). But when I got my licence back I decided not to sacrifice the money and bought my own car.
So the list goes:
But now the only real survivor from that long list is Big Blue (and the soon to be scrapped Rudolf). All the others have been sold on. Even Big Blue is currently SORNed waiting for the weather to get warmer as it needs some work done to get through the MoT. Meanwhile Florence, the Fiat Ducato camper van, is our only running vehicle.
So that's the list. As you'll know if you saw me posting elsewhere my main interest these days is online mapping and I'm responsible for http://maps.the-hug.net and http://www.walklakes.co.uk/maps so if you've got any questions or suggestions then do say.
So the list goes:
- The Poo Colour Beast - ex military 109 SIII still with the original military font bumpers and, at some point after joining civilian life, an inexpertly applied paint job in matt brown (hence the name). Used to scare the sh*t out of other drivers as they knew at a glance I really didn't care about the external state of my vehicle
- Baby Blue - a SWB SIII diesel van in the the classic blue body/white roof combination. Lovely thing and I learned a lot on that including the joys of replacing the rear quarter chassis. Luckily by then I'd met Beth, my future wife, through another Land Rover forum. She knew all about doing this so I spent a week stripping down the rear bodywork, then she turned up for the weekend bringing her welder with her (my kind of girl ;-)) and cut off and welded a new quarter chassis on for me (see what I mean).
- Troc - the Trocadero Red Range Rover classic. By then Beth and I were living together so were a two landie family (she had a Lightweight which she'd dropped a V8 into for trialling) but we needed something more comfortable for longer distances and Troc was the answer. 3.9V8 auto. Lovely to drive. And air con too. Luxury.
- Rudolf - red V8 Defender (hence Rudolf the red nosed landrover). Now sadly MoT failed too many times and sitting at the far end of our drive waiting to be scrapped.
- Dougal - the 2.4 Disco II. Dougal the Disco was essentially a replacement for Troc. The first landie I didn't really find easy to work on. Too car like. When we got a water leak, which turn out to be a cracked head (common problem with that block) it cost us £2,400 with Rogers of Bedford to get it fixed.
- Aragorn - a very tidy Lightweight we had for a while.
- Big Blue - our real project vehicle. Bought as an MoT failure (the chassis was completely rotten, how it got through the previous MoT I've no idea as we literally kicked one outrigger off). We replaced the chassis on this 109 with a coiler chassis, replaced the engine with a V8 from an SD1, replaced the roof with a safari roof (from Famous Four). See the project web pages for more on that.
But now the only real survivor from that long list is Big Blue (and the soon to be scrapped Rudolf). All the others have been sold on. Even Big Blue is currently SORNed waiting for the weather to get warmer as it needs some work done to get through the MoT. Meanwhile Florence, the Fiat Ducato camper van, is our only running vehicle.
So that's the list. As you'll know if you saw me posting elsewhere my main interest these days is online mapping and I'm responsible for http://maps.the-hug.net and http://www.walklakes.co.uk/maps so if you've got any questions or suggestions then do say.
Last edited:
