Actually, looking at the Heritage 90, what struck me was how far removed both the design and the market were from the 1948 model!
(Farmer/recreation, absolutely basic/many extras, front designed so lights+radiator protected by being set back and in/all the easily damaged bits right on the corners, almost every part of the body & chassis either alloy or galvanised/plastic everywhere less alloy and almost no galvanising)
John
John
JDNSW
1986 110 County 3.9 diesel
1970 2a 109 2.25 petrol
True John but I was comparing to other 4wd's on the market. For example the Land Cruiser has changed so much more in a smaller life span.
Nathan.
It is possible - colour is about right, but I am not aware of any of the National Development vehicles ever having been 107 wagons - all that I ever saw or heard of were 80/86/88 hardtops. Rather more likely is that the colour was copied by either Leylands or the original owner from the National Development vehicles. I note that their Series 2 was the same colour - and by that time National Development had gone to yellow. (not sure why, possibly a bit cooler. Both colours were to make the vehicle easy to spot for search parties!)
John
Last edited by JDNSW; 22nd October 2015 at 04:02 PM. Reason: typo
John
JDNSW
1986 110 County 3.9 diesel
1970 2a 109 2.25 petrol
It's an interesting discussion, I'm intrigued because it is about losing the culture of roving, the unmediated journey and the 'touch' yes; but also the shifting culture of vehiclular priorities.
The simplicity and pragmatism of great design and making-do, has almost succumbed to the micromanaged surety that someone will come and rescue the high tech luxury escape module that has gone into limp mode. How have priorities shifted so far in such a short time? It's like backing up to the cloud. Blind faith. The digital oil level dipstick that tells you that the oil is critically low, goes into limp mode, needs a flatbed truck, but its not really, it just needs a 500ml top up! Hmm... vehicles designed for urbanity, marketed as escaping urbanity, but confirming the utopian misnomer of disurbanity. Yes electrickery is just something to learn how to diagnose and repair in the field; but more than the mechanics, it's actually the ethos, the departure without known destination being mapped, gps'd, researched, without pre-ordained coordinates, that is being lost.
Somehow the freedom to rove far from our own pre-conceptions has become a mere capsule of momentary elixir, based more on the 'look of landscape' than on the finding of country.
John is right, the pragmatism of bush design of the land rover has slowly ebbed away into the heritage 90, but the purity of the first range rovers has vanished much more rapidly, into a luxury behemoth unattainable by the majority. ...is this the fate of the defender too?
...yes re-bore the 4BD1 yet again, it's now a 5.2 litre, the side walls are so thin that it's translucent, the 300tdi has become a 400tdi by default. The cloud doesn't recognise the puma 2.9 re-map and the 1.3 solar Hover Rover just doesn't allow you to 'touch', well, anything outside the humidicrib. A luddite you say? ...no actually, just an earthling, intent on retaining the lost art of roving. A limited edition. Like grasmere green long ago lost its namesake, the forests.
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