The Rover-Landers of BC

My children have grown up with me driving Land Rovers so don't consider them anything special. If they think of them at all it's as noisy, smelly, drafty things that we stuff several mortal vehicles worth of gear in and on when we go "adventuring" as we called our trips when they were younger.

So, imagine my suprise when, by chance, all three of them had the pleasure of rides in the Tdi Rangie today.

10 year old daughter: "Hmm, these seats are comfy. How do I adjust the arm rest?"

15 year old son: "This isn't as nosiy as your other Land Rovers. (settles back in his seat) Luxury, almost. Hey! The radio can get more than one station!"

12 year old son: "is this new?"

Bless 'em.

Congratulations David,

Your latest addition should pretty much complete your fleet now. I think a RRC with a stick and 300TDi is pretty much the ultimate Rover.

It always helps when the family loves them, but you didn't mention your very patient wife's reaction.

Cheers,

Actually, this truck has an autobox. I did find some manual transmission ones in France, which the french prefer as they love to rev the nuts off them just like they do every other vehicle they buy - consequently the ones I found were all knackered.

A French registered auto diesel is very rare by all accounts. Reason this exists is that the one and only previous owner was English and ordered it that way. When it was just two years old he moved back to the UK and drove it with the steering wheel in the wrong place for another 12 before I got it.

Driving it on the same roads as the 300 Tdi 110 is interesting, the rangie is geared higher, but even taking that into consideration the auto box is far more conservative with the revs than I am in the Defender. Consequently I'm getting much better consumption figures out of it than I was expecting. I most start changing up quicker in the Defender. Maybe I should get a rev counter for it too.

As for the wife - she keeps hinting that I should let her have the Rangie. I think she likes it :)