So as you'll have seen yesterday, PH was seeing in Land Rover's 65th birthday with a rumble around in
some old Landies
. All good fun but, of course, the brand's big news this year is
Range Rover Sport
and a quick drive in a 1971 example shows just how much influence that 70s original has on the new car.
A Bahama Gold three-door with umber carpets and carburetted 3.5-litre V8 this is a true period piece, not to mention a rarity. Land Rover had to go to Australia to source this one, restoring and re-registering it WYK 315J in honour of the fifth Range Rover prototype.
Brawny four-speed manual and a V8 - heaven!
The seminar for the new Range Rover Sport we've just sat through (again!) is a boggling lesson in
high technology
and in comparison the 70s car is basic in the extreme. But not outdated. Only the bonnet mounted wing mirrors really age the exterior, the blocky lines having aged superbly and that classic rear-set stance still distinctive despite over four decades of familiarity.
These early Range Rovers were famous for being much more utilitarian than the luxurious machines they became but after bouncing around in various Land Rovers it's in a totally different league of refinement, comfort and speed. Mainly speed, in fact.
A manual shifter in a Range Rover seems incongruous, the two-foot pole sprouting from the carpet putting the Bakelite shift knob in easy reach and connected to a ponderous but positively gated four-speeder that has a manly, deliberate action perfectly in keeping with the muscle car soundtrack. This literal connection with the separate chassis and Land Rover underpinnings is a neat analogy for the Range Rover's combination of new-school style and car-like refinement with proper 4x4 engineering. And one of those important seat of the pants messages that make cars like this so interesting.
In comparison the steering is light via the large, skinny-rimmed wheel. It's an initially odd combination, palming the wheel around but yanking the shifter through the gate with a determined heave-clank-thud but it's full of character and even with just 137hp the three-door feels light and lively on the Packington Estate's access roads. It sounds fabulous too, the famous old V8 as smooth as they come and, if a little narrow in power band, willing and able to pull from low in the rev range and sing through to a more determined top end.
Re-engined 1971 Rangie in PH classifieds
Great visibility and that sense of lightness overcome any sense of top heaviness and pitch, heave and roll are surprisingly well contained. It betrays its body-on-frame build and live axles off-road but the really impressive thing is how resolved it feels on it and all the time you've got that glorious V8 at the heart of it punctuated with the kind gearshifts that'd make a
Fast And Furious
So, yes, there was 'sport' in the Range Rover long before the Sport. And if you fancy one like this? Well, get ready for a long search, although someone has a very nice one in the PH classifieds that looks the part, even if it has a modern diesel engine and not a V8. It needs that to complete the experience though. And how will the new one compare? More on that very soon...