LANDROVER MONTHLY 95
the hours of darkness, and I’d leave the factory in whatever
vehicle Iwas mileage-testing at the time, divert to MIRA, put
in a few hours of testing on the endurancevehicle, and then
head off to completemy400 mile test drive. I did that fora
couple of nights aweek for a fortnight!
“Over an intense butvery successfulAugustweekend at
MIRA we took a raft of sprint and endurance national
records in the diesel-engined2.0- to3.0-litre class, including
taking the 24-hour endurance speedrecord toover 100 mph
for the first time, and Iwas delighted to have been a part of it
all. Therewas a real team spirit andeveryone involved
contributed to theoverall success. When LRM arrangeda
reunion of theBullet team in 2018 Iwent along and itwas
funny to hearmyold team mates talking about the amount
of unpaid time they’d put in. I should probably havekept
quiet but I piped-up to tell them that I’d been paid for both
myhours on the practice driving and formytimeover the
record-breakingweekend.None of them knew about it and
I must admit therewere one or two ripe comments directed
at me!”
In 1987 the mileage driving teamwas relocated from
Solihull to Gaydon together with therest of the Engineering
team, and Colin didn’treallywant to make the move. He
transferred to join the Press Fleet underJohn O’Donnell
whichremained at Solihull, where he spent his time running-
in fleetvehicles and delivering them tovariousevents.He
soon found himself beingregularly called uponbyRoger
Crathorne to help out withRoger’s Demonstrations team,
and this ended up with Colin transferring toRoger’s team
full time.
“Itwas quite a small team and I canremember that in the
early years we were housed under the stairs in the
Engineering block at Solihull! We were responsible for
taking ourexhibition units and demonstrationvehicles to
dealerevents and things like agricultural shows, and from
relatively humble beginningswesoon grew to become one of
the UK’s most highly-regarded display teams. The company
invested in some phenomenal rigs thatwould allow us to
display LandRovers high above the crowds on huge girder
structures, and I ended up beingresponsible for driving the
customised arctic units all over Europe, transporting the
display rigs.
“It could be quite a task at times, becausewe were forced
to fit in with the show organisers’ plans, so I’d end up doing
things like driving a rig to Scotland and then driving it down
to Cornwall a couple of days later, and then after that show
had ended having to drive back north for another show in
Scotland. We were also involved in all the new vehicle
launches including the days when the presswere invited to
drive the newvehicles, and thosewere always interesting!
During the launch of the 90 at Eastnor, forexample, I had to
drive all thevehicles that had been damagedbythe press
during the day back to Solihull forrepair, and ensure they
were back on parade at Eastnor the following day.
“And then therewas theevent at BlairAtholl in the Scottish
Highlands wherewediscovered thateveryvehicle that came
back from driving the demonstration circuit across the hills
had suffered damage to the alloy wheels. Roger
took me to one side and said ‘you know whatyou’ve got to do,
don’tyou?’ and I did!Hewanted me to drive the circuit and
find therock thatwas obviously to blame for the wheel
damage, and deal with it. Dick Anderton and I drove over
25 miles of the off-roadroute beforewefound it, and it
was a small nib ofrock hidden in the heather beside the
track. We knew it was the right rock because it was
surroundedby chips of alloy wheel rim.It turned out to bea
very bigrock, though, and it took us quite a while to dig it
out and move it!
“We also attended the bigVal D’Isère 4x4 show in the Alps
a few times, whichwas always enjoyable, aswell as many UK
LandRover shows such as Billing. In fact, the show at Billing
in 2002was mylast one before I formallyretired from Land
Rover in 2002, although itwas markedbyan unfortunate
incident when I reversed a Defender into one of the
exhibition Discoverys.Roger Crathorne presented me witha
framed certificate for what he described asmy‘Amazing
SpatialAwareness Skills, InsuranceFormAvoidance and for
GenerallyPassing theBuck’! Iwas also given awonderfulColin’s rig enroute
to Val D’Isere