The Latest Obsession

I have long fantasized about owning a Land Rover. This has been nothing but a pipe dream but I did enter into it deep enough to buy a nice repair manual long since lost. I test drove a Defender 90 15 years ago and liked it a lot for what it was. I could not afford a new or close to new Defender now so that route is out. I remember (recurring theme here: see 'Things that Beep') the Defender 90 in spite of being a new vehicle had very little in the way of 'extras': no carpet, no electric windows, no heated seats etc. All the ridiculous little gee-gaws that cars of every price point seem to have that you pay for and don't necessarily want were missing. Simple.

So I was looking around thinking that maybe once I get to Albuquerque I might get a LR. Well there are all sorts of rigs out there for sale, some for too much, some for a reasonable amount. My favorite find is this one: http://agustinspurlock.com/gallery1/index.htm This is the sort of fantastic exploration that gets you little nuggets of interest for future reference. For example: check out this guys name: Agustin Spurlock. Initially I thought NFW this guys name is really Agustin Spurlock. Sounds like a pulp fiction detective.

The thing I really like about old Land Rovers is there timelessness. At some age it ceases to be important exactly what year they were built but what condition they are in, how many miles since the last motor rebuild, what sort of transmission is in it, is the frame galvanized, does the winch work etc. This vehicle is nearly forty years old. It does not have ANY thing extra by todays automobile standards. If you are hot you open a vent just above the hood beneath the windshield by hand and air comes in. The beauty of this sort of engineering is it lasts because it is simple and if it breaks you can fix it. Land Rovers have aluminum body panels that don't rust, they are simple and flat and bolt to a frame: Old school. No unibodies. Land Rovers for all there British quirks and poor 'performance' by modern standards achieve something that most cars do not: they last. They do not last because they never break down or never rust (they do both). They last because they are the sort of vehicle that someone wants to maintain.

I made a deal with Erin (the mother of my sweet daughter and my favorite person on the planet) that we would NEVER drive a minivan. Bear with me, this is germaine. Along the continuum of vehicular soul minivans are bereft. They have no soul: they are conveyance, they are convenience, they are convention, but they do not have that something that a vehicle must have to engender LOVE. They are a Land Rovers antithesis. Thus my love for LR's. So.

There is something about the pace of Land Rovers that I like. It runs against the mindset of ever increasing media distraction and multitasking imperative that our culture and its advertisers push us towards. There is something peculiar and eccentric about LR's that adds to their 'soul' value.

More later.