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Picture Car Confidential #10: Land Rovers, Then and Now
Me and Land Rovers, we go back a long way.
In the early Sixties, around the time I entered kindergarten, my dad, a freelance satirist named Marvin Kitman, went on staff at the newly formed Monocle, a satirical magazine based in New York. (No relation, incidentally, to a newer magazine by the same name.) In 1964, the magazine, which, owing to financial constraints, called itself a “sporadical,” publication, launched what I believe was one of the first-ever satirical presidential campaigns. My dad—the only staffer who would turn 35 by Inauguration Day 1965, as required by the Constitution—was their chosen candidate. (You can read all about it here in the late, lamented Automobile Magazine.)
The important thing to note here is that somewhere along the way the campaign bumped into legendary adman Howard Gossage. An off-the-wall “Mad Man” type by all accounts, Gossage and his agency happened to handle The Rover Cars, Ltd.’s stateside business. Aside from the generalized willingness of Monocle to accept any publicity, especially if it was free, there was the burning need for campaign vehicles that didn’t cost anything. Gossage proposed that the Land Rover (we’re talking Series IIA at this point) might serve as the campaign’s official vehicle and then be used in some of the company’s print advertisements. These were, after all, the glory days of print magazines.
When Rover’s U.S. marketing department—the remarkable husband and wife team of J. Bruce McWilliams (later a U.S. British Leyland executive) and his wife, Jimmy—enthusiastically agreed, into my young life came a veritable parade of Land Rovers that would outlast the short-lived campaign but carry on with occasional loans to my Pa for years to come. Sometimes I think my life as a car writer began to take shape in those formative years, when I realized some people got to drive Land Rovers (88s, 109s, hard tops, soft tops) for free. I thought—and still think—they were so cool.
All of this by way of explaining that long trips in classic Land Rovers on paved roads, especially in those Series vehicles, were something I grew to know quite well. Possibly too well. As you may have heard, Series Landies (as they are affectionately known by owners too lazy to cough up the extra syllable) are not for the weak of heart or the hard of hearing. Yes, you were hard-pressed to reach 70 miles per hour, even with overdrive, but this shouldn’t have been too surprising as you were hard-pressed to reach 60 or even 50. And if the trip was long enough, you could reliably count on losing your hearing for some period of time, as the uninsulated cabin transmitted to the auditory canal every road noise known and unknown to engineering science. Noise, vibration, and harshness don’t begin to describe it.
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Not that I learned much from these trips, either. In 1971, I felt I was very close to talking my parents into buying a Series III 88” wagon as our next family car, but then we drove one from London to Geneva and back on our family’s first and only European vacation. We hadn’t made it but 15 miles from Calais and the French coast, after ferrying from Dover, when my father declared that there was no way this could become our family car. Two thousand miles later he was even more convinced. Foiled, I had to learn this lesson for myself 20 years later. I ended up owning a few Series Rovers of my own in adult life and a couple of newer but still antique-adjacent Defenders. After some 40,000 rough-riding miles, I had to concede that they were unfit for long-distance service.
Now, I well knew that the modern-day Land Rover Defender was a whole other can of peas, but I’d never driven one any great distance. So when I was invited to speak at Jean Jennings’ memorial in Dearborn, Michigan, I chose to accept Jaguar Land Rover’s offer of a new Defender 130 in which to make the trip from New York. The extra-long eight-seater was kind of overkill for just two people and three days’ luggage, but recalling how good the ordinary new age Defender was to drive on the road, my interest was more than piqued. The likelihood of significant snow and rain along the 650-mile route only enhanced the proposition’s reasonableness.
I come to you today to report that the 130 was excellent as a long-distance hauler, throwing off the close to 1400-mile roundtrip with zero issues. Finished in matte black, as is the current fashion, murdered out from the factory, it made me feel like I was in a James Bond movie or any one of the many British crime dramas where flotillas of Defenders (and Range Rovers) are in attendance at just about every diplomatic occasion, crime scene investigation, chase sequence, and country home. Even on this side of the pond, here at Octane Film Cars we’ve found that all Land Rovers and Range Rovers, old and new, work regularly. They’re that, forgive the phrase, iconic. If we were smarter and richer, we’d own a few.
Best of all, the Defender 130 made me feel like I was driving a tall Jaguar sedan, with far and away the best ride and handling balance of any SUV with serious off-road capability that I’ve ever experienced. The new Toyota Land Cruiser I drove to Pittsburgh a few months ago? Perfectly fine, I thought, but the Defender is in another league entirely.
The weather on the way out to Michigan this winter day was fine most of the way—much better than predicted, in fact—making me question my vehicular choice. But then a sudden driving snowstorm in Ohio descended and the Defender couldn’t have been more capable and composed. The only downside was fuel economy that barely kissed 17 mpg. Then again, speeds were high and my lawyer, er, me, suggests we not go there. Jean Jennings—who, along with David E. Davis, Jr., did more in the pages of Automobile Magazine to promote “the best 4x4s by far” than any American publication—would have approved.
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A man of many pursuits (rock band manager, automotive journalist, concours judge, purveyor of picture cars for film and TV), Jamie Kitman lives and breathes vintage machines. His curious taste for interesting, oddball, and under-appreciated classics—which traffic through his Nyack, New York warehouse—promises us an unending stream of delightful cars to discuss. For more Picture Car Confidential columns, click here. Follow Jamie Kitman on Instagram at @commodorehornblow; follow Octane Film Cars @octanefilmcars and at www.octanefilmcars.com.
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Jamie, explain to us again when you say Land Rover offered a new log wheel base very expensive SUV for free to drive to Michigan. How does a person get on that list. In half a century of owing Cadillacs not once has the manufacturer offer me a new Fleetwood or Escalade to drive across the country. Heck I have to fight to get a loaner when the Escalade V is in for service and then they usually “give” me some four cylinder CT4 or ATS that mice would have a hard time fitting in to drive. Again just between us how do you get free SUVs.
I read the Automobile Mag article. That one lone NH delegate Fritz Weatherbee is still alive and kicking. He just wrapped up a 25 year career doing local interest spots on WMUR – NH’s only local TV station.
Daktari!
I completely understand the difficult-to-explain-to-others feeling that you get from series Land Rovers and Defenders. I own and enjoy driving a 2010 Defender with a re-mapped 2.4Ltr Ford Transit diesel powerplant. My other machines are a modern(ish) BMW 3 Series Wagon, and a sprinkling of LBC’s (Little British Cars), so entirely different to drive and enjoy, but, when I drive the Defender, its primitiveness and crude engineering makes no matter—it’s a blast.
The new ones ride really well and do all the bad weather and offroad stuff easily. I still have a tough time trusting the electronics on these things. Last one I played with was horribly laggy and buggy.