January 29, 2015 by carcoutureblog

Land Rover’s Black Pack Defender Is One Of The Last Special Editions

They call me ‘Twin Defender Jeremy’. I’m not a farmer but there are now two Land Rover’s parked outside and both represent opposite ends of the Land Rover ownership spectrum!

My own 1972 Series III is about as basic as they come. A ponderous, four-speed gearbox with Fairey overdrive. It rattles and squeaks BUT with a little love and care over the years it still holds its oil and is apparently going up in value.

The spanking new Defender Black Pack is one of the final, special edition Land Rovers. Yes, a new model will arrive next year and cause much nashing of teeth among off-roaders who like to wear baseball caps.

Black Pack is not aimed at them. It’s been ‘urbanised’ to look cool and trendy. I must admit, I rather like it.

But here’s one fact I can tell you without even driving Black Pack. The £30,000 model will still drive just the same as any Defender however you dress it up. Yes, It’s going to be a testing week for my back and eardrums…

August 7, 2014 by carcoutureblog

Range Rover Sport – Is This The Perfect All-Rounder?

Last day with the Range Rover – how are we going to survive without the perfect, all round car? Possibly by replacing it with the perfect, all-round saloon, the Jaguar XFR.

Remarkable to think that both these great British manufacturers were struggling 20 years ago. Now they each boast an exceptional line up of vehicles, perhaps the only serious threat to German dominance in the premium brand market.

It’s even more surprising to me because the Range Rover is currently parked next to my 40-year-old Land Rover Series III. The Landie may as well have been bolted together 100 years ago the difference is so vast.

I’m itching to see what Land Rover do with the new Freelander when it arrives. Until then, I’ll have to think up another excuse for borrowing a Range Rover for a week…

August 6, 2014 by carcoutureblog

Range Rover Sport – Kids Just Like The Rear-Screen Entertainment

You might think that the main talking point about the Range Rover Sport is the sumptuous interior, the remarkable comfort, or perhaps, how it performs down a deeply rutted track in Gloucestershire.
The topic of conversation would no doubt turn to one of these subjects if two blokes were discussing it down the pub. But teenagers see it from a totally different perspective.
While I grew up playing Eye-Spy on the backseat, kids these days have a complete entertainment/communication package in their mobile phone.
So it was even more surprising how the children I drove back from the shops yesterday were just blown away by the £5,000 entertainment package in the back of the Rangey. They thought it was even better than the rear heated seats!
The wireless headphones were a hit, while the chance to watch The Big Bang Theory on the move proved priceless…

August 5, 2014 by carcoutureblog

Range Rover Sport – Big Car

Every now and again, Jeremy Clarkson falls in love with a car. Once it was the new Beetle (hard to believe but true), then the Eagle E-Type Jaguar and more recently, the latest Range Rover.
Right now, I’m loved up with the Range Rover Sport. As much as you may cringe for its bling potential, the mid-size Rangey is a quite brilliant all-rounder.
You can go faster in a BMW X5, carry more in a Toyota Landcruiser and spend more on a Mercedes but none of them hold a candle to the Sport.
Next week I’ll be driving the sumbline Jaguar XF-R for my birthday. I got it wrong – the Range Rover would have been the perfect birthday car…

August 3, 2014 by carcoutureblog

Range Rover Sport – How To Give A Range Rover A Bad Name

Commonly known as Chiswick-on-Sea, Rock in Cornwall is where the mums and dads of ‘gap ya’ students go to soak up the seaside. Ugly bungalows have been transformed into bigger, ugly bungalows but with large glass windows. This affords them an air of respectability and immediately trebles the price…

Teenagers are packed off for the summer here, to ‘struggle by’ in six bedroom holiday homes, with only a housekeeper and Waitrose deliveries every other day to survive. They moan about the dodgy wifi, lack of Nandos and getting sand in the footwell of their city cars.

Chomping over some toast, jam and clotted cream for breakfast this morning, the Cornish farm looked lovelier than ever. My host chose this moment to tell me a wonderful story about a London couple who came to pick up their darling childlet in their Range Rover.

The track to the farm is rutted and scarred but perfectly passible in a Ford Fiesta. The owner of the Range Rover arrived in a huff, stepped out of the car and then complained bitterly about the damage it has caused to his 4×4. His wheels were indeed, splattered in cow shit.

And such is the problem facing the Land Rover marketing people. Range Rovers used to be for drivers who actually lived in the country and didn’t mind getting their wheels dirty. Now, unfortunately, people who have holiday homes in Cornwall buy them too.

They choose polar white paint, add a personalised number plate and drive like buffoons. Suddenly, owning a brilliant vehicle like a Rangey isn’t so cool. In fact, it just says one thing about the driver.

You’re a complete twat.

August 1, 2014 by carcoutureblog

Range Rover Sport – Robert Redford In The Back of My Range Rover…

It’s August 1, it’s the first day of the holiday in Cornwall and it’s absolutely lashing down! Camping in the middle of a rain-soaked field was never meant to be like this. It’s water off a duck’s back to the Range Rover, of course. I’m already looking at the possibilities of sleeping in the car tonight.

The Autobiography has just about every piece of luxury kit available but the rear-screen DVD system is going to come into it’s own later. We’re planning a back seat screening of the Robert Redford sailing movie, All Is Lost – which seems appropriate, considering the circumstances.

Dog in the boot, £5,000 of top flight speakers and heated seats to enjoy. It costs £25 to take two people to the movies these days – I reckon that after three years, the Range Rover DVD system might have paid for itself.

Right, I’m off for a spot of sea-kayaking, followed by a light crab summer. It’s Cornwall, it always rains…

July 31, 2014 by carcoutureblog

Range Rover Sport – The School Run Favourite For Posh Mums…

Sandwiched between the full-size Range Rover and the ‘squashed’ Evoque is the favourite school run SUV for posh mums – the Sport.

And having only driven 12 miles to Kemble railway station and back, I can tell you already that this latest Sport is one of the most complete cars I have ever driven, as well as being definite yummy mummy material.

Not only is it supremely comfortable, beautifully built and easy on the eye, it drives like a GTI and still returns exceptional MPG. Perfect.

You are paying premium money for the Range Rover Sport but as an all-rounder, it simple blows away anything offered by Mercedes or BMW. Just what you need for dropping the little ones off at St Trinians…

More tomorrow after I’ve driven down to Cornwall…

April 1, 2014 by carcoutureblog

Tuesday – The Holden Land Rover

Rob Holloway wouldn’t sell his house overlooking Franklin Sound for any money. He built it with his own hands and then surrounded it with all creatures great and small in the paddocks. He wouldn’t give up the keys to his prized Land Rover Series III either.

Holloway is a fourth generation settler on Flinders Island – a tiny lump of land in the Bass Strait, between mainland Australia and Tasmania. While he has every type of ‘man tool’ going – three chainsaws, a homemade 30ft metal rib and assorted shotguns among them – the Land Rover is his pride and joy.

Born in 1973, the short wheelbase has been crashing around the island for years, currently with a Holden six-cylinder engine. The extra power means he often shears a drive shaft or two in the process.

Key features include a bench vice bolted to the front bumper, and every telephone number on the island scribbled on the inside of the roof. What else is a roof there for anyway?

The Holden engine is a beast. It’s not pretty but it’s the only one you need for chasing wild pig across the beach…

February 13, 2014 by carcoutureblog

Thursday – A Big Statement

I’ve been scratching my head all day trying to work out whether I ‘love’ the Range Rover or not. One the one hand, it is pure, unadulterated luxury on a very large scale. On the other, it simply feels too large for British roads.

After being heckled in a multi-story car park, I’ve been rather more conscious of the size of the beast. And today, driving to Witney across the back roads of Oxfordshire, it seemed I was constantly having to pull left to avoid oncoming vehicles down narrow country routes.

There’s also an awful lot of car to handle on a corner. Make no mistake, this amazing Range Rover still wallows and dips on a fast bend like earlier models. It’s also so smooth that you are sometimes left braking late, a lot harder than you expected.

I’ve deliberately avoided rattling on here about the gadgets and giszmos, of which there are many and make life in a Range Rover so dizzily enjoyable. But once you have got over the thrill of a heated steering wheel, dual direction infotainment screen and electric reclining rear seats, it all comes down to how it drives.

As brilliant as the Rangey is as clambering over rough or smooth terrain in style, it’s not a vehicle you can drive enthusiastically. A luxury sofa on wheels that makes a big statement – that’s the new Range Rover.

February 12, 2014 by carcoutureblog

Wednesday – Slippery When Wet

I can’t believe anybody would buy a Range Rover and then drive it over truly harsh terrain. Off-roading to most Range Rover owners would mean parking on the pavement outside Harrods.

When you put this to a Range Rover owner like I did today, they quite often tell you that isn’t the point. The point is, according them, that you have reassurance in just ‘knowing’ the Range Rover is almost unstoppable in the rough.

I suppose that is a little like an Aston Martin owner who usually keeps within the speed limit but ‘knows’ the car is capable of almost three times motorway speed limits.

Having splashed through huge puddles and been forced to mount muddy ditches today in the Cotswolds (it’s still raining here!), all I know is that you are never going to go off-road in anything more luxurious than a Range Rover…

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