On 16/4/05, Godfrey DiGiorgi, discombobulated, unleashed:
>Land Rover has been owned by Ford for some years now. They're seem to
>be doing quite well ... Ford's pushed their marketing nicely and there
>are a ton of them on the road in my area.
Land Rovers are my vehicle of choice. Since 1985, I've owned:
4 X Range Rover Classics
1X Series 1
1X Series 2a
1X Ninety
1X One Ten
and mercifully driven through my work, since 1998:
1X Ninety
3X Discoveries
each of the last four left me with 90,000 miles plus on the clock
(and as a nod to Godders, when a Disco goes in for a service, they give
me a Freelander for the day - nippy, solid, but the 'A' posts are too wide!!)
after all the above, certain things stand out:
1. The best all round LR has to be the Rangie
2. Ninetys and One Tens will all leak rain water through the door seals
("they al do that")
3. Discoverys have no rearward vision to speak of and can only be driven
backwards with side mirrors (I'm now an expert)
4. A Series 1 makes my knees knock (both when seeing one, and driving one)
5. The 5 cylinder TD5 engine is a monster diesel
6. The Ninety is without doubt the most agile LR and can do magical
things off the tarmac.
7. The Ninety shares top spot with the Jeep CJ5 as the all time best off
road machine.
8. I can't inkjet print in mono worth dick.
9. The standard middle row seating in a One Ten is designed for toddlers
and dwarves.
10. Like Mini, Land Rover is now owned by a non-British parent company,
but (like Mini) Land Rovers are still built on UK assembly lines, by hard
working Brits, and they are very proud (like Mini) of what they do.
We just came back from Cornwall after a few days R&R - our 1994 Range
Rover Classic Tdi did 500 miles to a 19 gallon tank (yes, that's 26 mpg
for a 2.5 ton 4X4), transported 4 people and all their luggage (just!) in
much comfort on a thousand mile round trip, cruised at 85, rock-crawled
over some farm tracks, attracted so much attention from seagulls in the
form of excretia, and never skipped a beat.
Pentax content: amongst the EOS paperweights, I took the venerable A*85mm
f/1.4 and boy is that lens my favourite of all time.
I took the LowePro Mini Trekker and Reporter 600 bags, but operated out
of the back of the car - which illustrated shortcomings in 2 bags like
this. I'm now looking for a Pelican case.
I'll put some pics up soon.
Cheers,
Cotty
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