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The cult of Land Rover Britain is now a chauffeur to the global elite

Unmuddied but filthy rich. Pool/Samir Hussein/WireImage

Unmuddied but filthy rich. Pool/Samir Hussein/WireImage


March 18, 2024   6 mins

In most circumstances, finding your car submerged in mud up to the fenders is a sign that something has gone badly wrong. For the off-road enthusiasts of the Shire Land Rover Club, it is the entire point of having a car. This was one of the first things I learned at the Club’s “play day”, held at a military training area near the Hampshire-Surrey border. I’d barely arrived when I witnessed a Defender 90 being hauled out of a bog where it had almost disappeared, water rising in fountains from its furiously spinning wheels. The man who did the hauling — also in a Land Rover, of course — was James McCurrach, a management consultant and volunteer on the Club’s committee. “No one learns,” he observed cheerfully, “someone else will have a go in a minute.”

The course was a maze of muddy tracks and clearings, littered with puddles that turn out to be deep trenches of water. As more Land Rovers arrived, it became an orgy of revving engines and diesel fumes. The Club’s basic purpose, said McCurrach, is to “meet up and talk shit about Land Rovers”, but these monthly play days are for pushing the cars to their limits. “When you go out as a group, you can be a lot braver and try things you would never try on your own. Most days I’ll come home and say, ‘I didn’t think my truck could do that.’” It was clear however that this is about people as much as vehicles. There is something oddly sentimental about a day spent dragging people out of holes; it is like an elaborate friendship ritual.

I was here to find out what the Club thought about the evolution of the Land Rover brand, a story that speaks to deeper shifts in Britain over the last 70 years. These cars once represented Britain’s rural soul; they were “classless” vehicles used by farmers, landowners and the royal family. Today, they have become status symbols for a moneyed elite around the globe. The Club’s members had plenty to say about this transformation, but their own geeky obsession with Land Rovers tells another story entirely. It demonstrates the survival, in these atomised times, of an associational life based on shared interests, fun, and a kind of everyday camaraderie.

Like most great British myths, Land Rover’s origins lie in the war, or more precisely, the strict industrial rationing that followed. This was what led Maurice Wilks to design a simple aluminium-bodied working vehicle for farmers in 1947. Unstyled, bare-bones authenticity turned out to be key to Land Rover’s charm. It became a feature of the British establishment in more ways than one, a detail of country life as well as a supplier of ambulances and army trucks. In 1970, the first Range Rover — a crossover catering to both everyday and off-road use — instantly found its way into the Louvre. For Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, who drove Land Rovers from the Fifties until their deaths, the cars helped to project a sporty, down-to-earth charisma. That said, the royal fondness for the brand was clearly sincere. The queen was supposedly handy with a spanner, while Philip made the design of his hearse a morbid pet project of sorts, tinkering with it for 18 years before finally riding in it in 2022.

“Philip made the design of his hearse a morbid pet project of sorts.”

The legendary simplicity of these cars is also what allows associations like the Shire Land Rover Club to flourish, and there are dozens of them in the UK and elsewhere. When I asked the enthusiasts what was special about Land Rovers, they all cited the ease of repairing and customising them, as well as the availability of spare parts for doing so — a result of various models using the same specs across decades. At the play day, I saw vintage military vehicles from the Seventies as well as Frankenstein cars cobbled together from different eras. As one Club member put it, “they’re a big Lego kit for adults really. You can swap and change bits as much as you like.” Unsurprisingly, this seems to attract mechanically-minded, hands-on types: engineers, farmers, tradesmen, builders of one kind or another, small business owners in software or electronics.

The spirit of passionate amateurism, along with the Club’s “pull your mate out of a hole” ethos, creates strong bonds. Some of the members have been close friends for decades. At the play day, I met one man who had come with his partner all the way from Belgium; he told me his main reason for collecting British cars is “the community”. These seemed like the kinds of people you would want around in an emergency, so I wasn’t surprised to learn that some of them, under the leadership of a Hampshire businessman called Guy Shepherd, have repeatedly driven to Ukraine with supplies for the war effort, including medical equipment, uniforms and quad bikes. Shepherd even donated one of his own classic Land Rovers, a weapons-mounted infantry vehicle, which went straight into action on the front line. The Club likewise ran an aid convoy to Bosnia in the Nineties. It is a useful reminder that groups like this are not just for hobbyists; they can be the stuff of civil society.

But the Club’s rugged vision of Land Rover feels increasingly antiquated. Over the decades, the lure of the luxury market has reshaped the brand into something that evidently lives on smooth surfaces. Leather and wood trimmings replaced the early utilitarian interiors (the first Range Rover could be hosed-down inside), the indestructible ladder-frame chassis made way for more comfortable handling, and electronic gadgetry began to infiltrate the engineering. The cars were finding a new role in the global market, as was the company itself. After being bought by BMW in the Nineties, it was passed along to Ford and finally ended up with the Indian conglomerate Tata Motors in 2008.

“Land Rover is a symbol of Britain’s power as a brand, and its powerlessness as a country.”

In this way, Land Rover became part of a historic shift in the economy, signalled by an openness to foreign ownership of even the most traditional British companies. In the same decade that it acquired Land Rover, Tata took over Tetley Tea, the remnants of British Steel, and Jaguar, another heritage car marque. Tata’s own heritage is certainly not to be sniffed at, having been established by the great Indian industrialist, Jamshedji Nusserwanji Tata, in 1868. Still, it is testament to the enormous global realignment of the last 70 years that Land Rover, whose first model was being designed the year India gained its independence from Britain, is now just one small part of a globe-spanning Indian business juggernaut. In addition to its British plants in Solihull and Halewood, Land Rovers are now made in Slovakia, China, India and Brazil. Meanwhile, the UK’s dependence on Tata was illustrated by the company’s recent decision to lay-off 2,500 steelworkers at Port Talbot in Wales, as well as its commitment to fund a much-needed battery plant for electric vehicles.

What is the significance of the Land Rover’s British heritage in this context? The design writer Deyan Sudjic has compared it to “breeding rare sheep”, in the sense that such brands are careful to retain the distinctive marks of their parentage even as they are relentlessly adapted for the market. The appeal of today’s Range Rovers, typically found in affluent urban enclaves, comes partly from a nouveau riche aspiration to an older image of prestige, like a modern equivalent of commissioning a family crest. That seems to be the idea behind the new Range Rover Burford, a name invoking the Cotswolds country lifestyle favoured by celebrities and hedge fund managers, aptly described by Simon Mills as “unmuddied but filthy rich”.

But while the brand is still associated with the royal family, it is also associated with Kim Kardashian. And increasingly, it is just famous for being expensive. Whereas the first Range Rover only cost twice as much as a Ford Cortina, Britain’s most popular car at the time, the latest models are now between four and 10 times the price of a Ford Puma. An endless menu of optional extras can take them past a quarter of a million pounds — and that is before the insurance premiums, which have skyrocketed thanks to the rate at which they are stolen (though at least criminals are more likely to use their off-road capabilities).

At the Shire Land Rover Club, the consensus was that the cars had lost touch with their roots. “Land Rovers as we’re using them here today are gone,” said Adam, a carpenter and longstanding member. “It’s now a luxury product. It’s a Gucci handbag or a Chihuahua. You’re paying for the oval badge.” The crucial difference for him, and for others I spoke to, was not a decline in performance or engineering, but the loss of the vehicles’ trademark simplicity. “If I want to change the brakes in that,” he said of his own 1962 model, “it might cost me a hundred quid and take me half a day. Now you have to take it to Range Rover, and they have to plug the car into a laptop.” The same complexity makes the newer versions unsuited to the really tough conditions that the Club loves. “There’s too many sensors, too many electronics, the air suspension can fail.”

Be that as it may, we could see the UK’s luxury car brands as a story of manufacturing prowess unlocked by foreign capital. Making these vehicles requires a level of craft and sophistication that Britain rarely achieved in the early decades of Land Rover. And they are hugely desirable overseas. Just look at what happened when sanctions prevented wealthy Russians from importing them: a mysterious boom in shipments to neighbouring Azerbaijan. The problem is that, as Ruchir Sharma has pointed out with respect to Europe as a whole, luxury goods are not a promising basis for a modern economy. It is all very well for Britain to supply the world with heritage cars — or, for that matter, with public schools, London apartments and actors with plummy accents — but such artisanal products do little to address chronic issues such as low productivity and underinvestment. No longer just a car, today Land Rover is a symbol of Britain’s power as a brand, and its powerlessness as a country.


Wessie du Toit writes about culture, design and ideas. His Substack is The Pathos of Things.

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Jim Veenbaas
Jim Veenbaas
8 months ago

I really enjoyed this essay. Good stuff. Land Rover is definitely a status symbol in Canada, not a work vehicle.

I need to change a front signal light bulb in my 2016 Dodge Ram. I might have to bring it to the dealer. It’s so damn complicated and I need a ridiculous socket wrench extension. I knew something was up when the YouTube vid was 10 minutes long.

Jules Anjim
Jules Anjim
8 months ago

“a story of manufacturing prowess unlocked by foreign capital”
And the tragedy of that story for Britain is that there was always plenty of domestic capital to unlock that manufacturing prowess, it’s just that so much of it was being allocated to perennially more expensive houses – one of the least productive assets a nation can accumulate, but one of the least risky for shiftless bankers to lend against.

Matt M
Matt M
8 months ago
Reply to  Jules Anjim

And that happened during 2 1/2 decades where the low birth rate meant house prices should have fallen. Without 400k+ net immigration a year since 2003 we would have had flat or falling house prices and people could have invested excess money into the productive sector.

We still could!

Sayantani G
Sayantani G
8 months ago

Perhaps it’s a delicious irony that the Parsi compradors of Bombay like the Tatas first flourished on account of the East India Company’s opium trade with China in Bombay.
They are now ruling the roost in twenty first century Britain.
From steel to car making.

https://www.thefreelibrary.com/The+Parsis+of+India+and+the+opium+trade+in+China.-a0210368290

Andrew Vanbarner
Andrew Vanbarner
8 months ago
Reply to  Sayantani G

Britain and America both made the decision to adopt free trade policies that helped greatly reduce world poverty.
This was accomplished at the cost of obliterating their industrial base, and enriching a newly obstreperous China.
It’s also impossible to manufacture ships, planes, and weapons when you have no factories.
Banks and software companies can do a lot of good. But a nation needs an industrial base to survive, particularly in a hostile world.

Sayantani G
Sayantani G
8 months ago

I agree. It was a hugely selfish decision to obliterate manufacturing.

Jake Raven
Jake Raven
8 months ago

A great article, thank you, it brought make fond memories.
I owned a series 2A and series 3 Landy, awesome vehicles that would go anywhere, slowly! I used to regularly drive my 3 from Cirencester to Reading and use the hard shoulder on the M4 so as not to slow down lorries.
The 2A had a split windscreen with wipers that barely worked and had individual motors that had to be spun to get the wipers working. The door locks were shot, and I used a hasp and staple and padlock to lock the doors. I once left it open in a car park, the car wasn’t stolen but the Mars bar on the seat was!
I wouldn’t touch, nor could afford, a modern one, and have used Isuzu for many years, but they too are not as good as they used to be.

Jake Raven
Jake Raven
8 months ago

Tata Steel turning our virgin steel plants into tin can recycling centres and building a battery factory, all subsidised by the taxpayer for a ‘green’ ideology. A sad indictment of what this country has become.

Dougie Undersub
Dougie Undersub
8 months ago

“.. luxury goods are not a promising basis for a modern economy ..”.
Oh I don’t know, LVMH is bigger than the rest of the Paris stock exchange put together.

Sean G
Sean G
8 months ago

Rather than stand for ‘manufacturing prowess,’ these gas-guzzling, road-hogging pieces of crap are an excellent way to identify people whose brains have been practically embalmed with money (to borrow a phrase from William S Burroughs) or are just so insanely foolish they’re willing to spend half their pay leasing one. The designers and marketers of these things are even more culpable. I’m tired of having local air quality destroyed for my children by stupid people who want the ‘status’ of a monster SUV, or — as a cyclist (the bicycle is how real tough guys travel) — having my already limited road space even further limited. The problem is even more urgent in Canada where, according to the IEA, people drive the least fuel-efficient vehicles of anywhere on the planet, and almost none of these vehicles are necessary — that is, almost never used for their purported off-road capability. Well, Canada is especially stupid…

JR Stoker
JR Stoker
8 months ago
Reply to  Sean G

The modern Landrover sits very lightly on the planet because of its superb modern engineering. The old ones, which I prefer, last so long that that largely compensates for the inefficiency at the exhaust pipe

Sean G
Sean G
8 months ago
Reply to  JR Stoker

Lightly on the planet indeed! A comparison of the 2024 Defender hybrid versus the 2024 Toyota Corolla shows it uses twice as much fuel. Then there are the extra resources needed to make it because it’s so huge, and then the extra wear on public roads due to the same.

Robbie K
Robbie K
8 months ago
Reply to  JR Stoker

The Range Rover is the most stolen vehicle in the UK, insurance will set you back on average £6k.

JR Stoker
JR Stoker
8 months ago
Reply to  Robbie K

No it’s not, no it isn’t. How many Range Rovers were stolen in the UK last year? 11. Eleven.

Steve Jolly
Steve Jolly
8 months ago
Reply to  Sean G

Ever since I was a kid, I’ve been disgusted by people complaining about gas prices. People say gas prices are too high but I look around and see people driving Escalades, Navigators, Explorers, and even people in trailer parks with their Rangers and F150’s and I think actually they’re not high enough. Some people just drive around as a form of recreation, which strikes me as basically lighting money on fire to watch it burn. I suppose back before the Internet there wasn’t much to do out in the countryside. Perhaps this behavior finally dies off with the boomer generation.

Nancy Kmaxim
Nancy Kmaxim
8 months ago

I think the take away from this article is not the cars, but the people. The industry and creative energy of self selected hobbies seem to support groups of energized joyful people. Definitely a path worth following.

Victoria Cooper
Victoria Cooper
8 months ago

All I can remember is sitting in the back of a land rover, on metal, with a bunch of kids and fistfuls of halters, being driven up the Downs, to be unloaded and catching the ponies and riding them back down to the yard, bareback, leading one or two, often cantering, no helmets. That is what land rovers mean to me.
(Circa 1958).