Thread: Land Rover

Originally Posted by JDNSW

Brian, basically you are saying the same as I did - the road performance and the dealers were the problem - by the time the road performance became available, as you say, lack of a volume car meant no dealer.

Mind you, go back to the sixties - most cars had no dealers most places (except possibly Holden) and communications were a lot worse. I remember in 1964 the ONLY car parts in stock in Normanton were spark plugs and fan belts for Holdens and Landrovers! On our field crews, generally we did not rely at all on local dealers as there usually was not one and even if there was they stocked virtually nothing - regardless of the vehicle type.

John

John, my experience of dealerships in country towns in the sixties when the rural industries were prosperous and had larger populations than now was that in towns say the size of Winton (then 1600 pop.) and larger, most major brands had a dealer. Winton had a Holden, International/BMC/Leyland, Ford, Chrysler/Rootes. Longreach had all major makes and a few others represented. Mt. Isa had the lot. Whether they had a reasonable range of parts is another story. A zone manager was supposed to check that his dealers were meeting their obligations to stock both vehicles and parts but if the dealer wouldn't or couldn't (finances) and there was no alternative dealer available then nothing was done. At Wall and Co. in Winton we carried our own spare parts stock for the trucks & mail cars, in spite of having a dealer in town, as parts from the deep south often took two or more weeks to arrive. Nowadays, Winton, like many other small towns, no longer has a motor dealer. There is Central Motors who sell Honda and Yamaha ag. bikes, quads, pumps, etc. and are a Ford parts and service agent. I don't think they carry anything more than filters and a few other fast moving Ford bits. Longreach now has only one car dealer left who usually has a Toyota Camry or a Falcon on the floor but only the one. Drought, financially crippled rural industries, and depopulation have brought this about. I don't think there is a LR dealer west of the coastal strip left in Qld.

and I got my licence driving a IIa in an artillery regiment! My point was the army used Land Rovers for years and they are still going strong (series not perentie).

Don't see that many Toyo or Patrols with that sort of usage still going strong.

Why isn't LR going for the army contract?If they aren't going LR what are they replacing them with?.Please don't say Hummer. Pat

used to get a bagging from my dad as to why i drove around in "the bucket"...my trust 1970 IIa. He loved the old shaped Shogun (uk speak for Pajero) and had one on those. Funny thing was i towed the Paj on numerous occasions, towed our Volvo a few times and recover so many folks it was silly in winter.

He stopped after going to a swap meet once when i guy who worked in the heavy earth moving industry/ building industry turned around and said i had a great car. They tried all manner of "other" stuff and foulnd the only capable vehicle that could take what they meated out over any lenght of time was.... a landrover.

My neighbour wants to go offroad with me soon.....after he gets new tyres for his lifted, upgraded patrol. Might stick my muddies onto the beast (Defender) but other than that it will be stock std. Give him credit.....he never has bagged the landy

G'day Folks

I will concur with both JDNSW and Brian Hjelm on the shortcomings of Leyland, JRA in Australia and the also the opposing Japanese vehicles. After being employed by the British Company for several years, one gets a good insight as to how things tick.

"SERVICE" is the main thing that all and any dealers or parts/service outlets should strive for

AND, that is what the Japanese importers DID. For every complete vehicle that Toyota & Nissan brought in to the country, they brought 2 in, in spares, and they sold SERVICE! "yes Sir, we have it in stock, how many would you like, compared to ---- Sorry sir, it would have to come from UK 16 weeks by air (you pay the freight) or 26 weeks normal stock replacement(insuffient stocks held) THAT'S What killed Landrover in Aust, and the SENIOR management thought that "when you had decided to buy a Rover/Landrover/RangeRover you then approach your dealer and place an order,be attended to when the Salesman was free believe me I have seen it so many times, and even in the current century things at the top haven't changed, Elitest!!!!.


rant over

cheers

I have a mate with a GQ that I go out with regularly and generally we dont get all that stuck and he has never bagged the landy as the first time we went out we scull dragged 2 MQ poo's out of a bog and up a greasey hill that he thought he wouldnt get up on MTR's and I wouldnt have a chance on BFG AT's but we both got up and he now defends Landies as much as I do but I dont see him driving one in a hurry.

Originally Posted by kaa45

So why do the Army use Land Rovers if Jap Crap is so brilliant?

God save the Queen (and the British Empire) .

Originally Posted by barryj

God save the Queen (and the British Empire) .

I don't think so - when the WW2 Jeeps needed to be replaced, it had to be British because of a shortage of (US)dollars and Empire Preference (after all they had to eat our sheep so we had to take their cars - the common market ended that). The ONLY vehicle available was the Landrover, and that was probably the best there was then , or at least as good as you could get, even without the Empire preference and dollar shortage. The other British offerings were a bit on the nose (mainly Austin Champ and later Gipsy - the first was designed by a committee, too expensive and too complicated, the latter was a bit of a disaster).

But when the Series Landrovers were being replaced it was an open tender process, although the army, with twenty years of using mainly Landrovers may have slanted the terms of the tender, either consciously or unconsciously, the Jap companies were not interested in bidding - they were flat out meeting civilian demand and had no intention of assembling them in Australia, which was a tender condition, and it would have been much more difficult for them to make the modifications demanded - unlike the 110, which was pretty much hand made anyway, and assembled in a large variety of versions.

John