Land Rover Monthly – October 2019

LANDROVER MONTHLY 37

A

fewweeks ago Iwas askedby British

explorer, and fellowexpat, TimJarvis

(you can find him on Instagram, @

timjarvisam) to find him a short wheel

Series IIA LandRover. Hehad seen

mine and seemingly developed the

LandRover bug.Relishing the chal-

lenge I jumped online to check my

usual haunts.

Weare pretty fortunate inAustralia, there are lots ofSeries

LandRovers about and thankfully most of them (except my

other project) do not suffer the same levels of rust thatyou

find in the UK. After a couple of days searching, a tatty-looking

Series IIA popped up onFacebookMarketplace. As with most

car ads inAustralia, the descriptionwas extremely brief with no

details on the condition of the car but

as itwas local I decided itwas worth

checking out. A viewingwas arranged

for the next day and to my surprise it

was easily coaxed into life.Not having

time to run itby Tim I took the plunge

and paid the asking price, knowing it

would be snapped up if I did not make

my move. I paid$2500 (£1400) which

for a 1966Series IIA with original2.25

petrol engine and no rust is a pretty

sweet deal.

The initial plan is to sort out the

front wings which are both heavily

battered andrepaint the entire car plus

all the otherrecommissioningwork

required to get itroadworthy(brakes

might be a good addition).

I shared the new arrival on my Instagram page and, asex-

pected, ‘patina’ came up in many of the comments.According

to some, I am not to fix the bodywork or considerrepainting

it. Now, I do largely get the patina thing – often when avehicle

is restored it loses its history and becomesyet another shiny

restoration job of which, there are many.But where does itstop?

With thisvehicle, the front wings areextremely battered and

have been fixed with rivets where they have torn.Is that patina

I should be preserving?

Whenreversing our Defender the other day one of the wheel

arches caught on the gatepost and it now has a small tear. Does

that now fall under the definition of patina and will I be chas-

tised for fixing it? I think there comes a point where avehicle

described as having patina is in fact avehicle thatwouldreally

benefit from arefresh. This applies to my other projectSeries

IIA, originally itwas mid-grey colour but the previousowner

took to it with a paint brush and painted it cream. Once again

when I shared pictures up of it on Instagram I had lots of people

insisting itwould be sacrilege if Iwere to touch the bodywork.

Differentstrokes (in this case, brushstrokes), for different folks

I guess.

So wenow have five LandRovers in our household and to

be honest I do not know how I managed to getaway with it!

Perhaps my wife has justresigned herself to my LandRover af-

fliction. The intention is to get the new one sorted out as quickly

as possible and sent it off to its new home within three months

(Leah may bereading this). In parallel I am alsoworking on my

109 project which is nowstripped to a chassis andawaitinga

new crossmember. Iwant to have that one finishedby the end

of theyear. I certainly feel I have a huge amount ofwork to do,

especially whenyou factor in the needs of the othervehicles.

In the last twoweeks Old Girl and

Grandma had to have their annual

roadworthy inspections. Thankfully

the testing is not as vigorous as the

MoT but itstill causes me a great deal

of anxiety when theystart looking at

oil leaks and brakes. In this instance

I am delighted to say that both per-

formedvery well! Old Girl initially

failed onexcessive oil leaks but that

was quickly addressed with the aid

of degreaser(yes I appreciate that

does not solve the underlying issue).

Grandma sailed through with just one

advisory: a leaking front swivel hous-

ing, I will consider that a win!

The feeling of elationwas short-

lived when I found myself having to

pay the nextyear’svehicleregistration fees.Notax-exempt

status here, although there is the option toregisteryour vehicle

as historic, which means much lower annual fees. Thereason

I have not chosen to do that is becauseyou can only use the

vehicles 60 times ayear – and I use all of mine much more

frequently than that.

Next week I am off to the UK. I think I shall take an empty

suitcase so I can fill it up with LandRover parts to bring back

with me. I am planning to visit Bearmach andExmoorTrim,

both having beenextremely supportiveover theyears, so it is

going to be fantastic to finally meeteveryone. I am also going to

be visitingJaguar LandRover for something that sounds incred-

iblyexciting.More details on that next month.

“Ilar gely getthepatina

thing–oftenwhena

vehicleisrestoredit

losesitshis toryan d

becomesan other

shinyrestojob. But

where doesitstop?”

Dobbo Down Under

Rising to the challenge

JACKDOBSON

■WhenBritJackDobsonemigratedtoAustraliain2010

hebroughthispassionforLandRoversalongwithhim.