A few weekends ago I was at the Victoria MG club's sports car show at Beaver Lake just north of Victoria.
I was wearing my Cowichan Valley Land Rover Rally t-shirt, and an older Gentleman with a Lexus-silver MGA told me that decades ago he was working in a water works project overlooking the ocean in Africa (I think South Africa, but I'm not sure). He said that the works were using a bunch of Land Rovers that were old and beaten even for African standards, but they ran fine. He found out that a decade before, the Rovers had been decomissioned and a batch of International Scouts were purchased. Turns out the constant salt spray quickly reduced the Scouts to rust from the top down, and the aluminum Land Rovers were pressed back into service, even though most of the galvanized metal bits had long before succubmed to rust. The Gentleman said that through his tenure on the project the Rovers were kept running as there was no budget for new vehicles, and the Rovers just wouldn't die.
I may not have remembered the details exactly, but I think well enough to be true to his story.
Tootles,
