Landrover LRX

I’ve been dreaming about owning a Landrover or similar 4×4 ever since seeing this video. I was just getting used to the idea of buying a clapped out old Landy when I saw a blog post about the new Landrover LRX. It’s a bit over the top and perhaps a little tasteless but I still want one! People might be less likely to pull out in front of me if I was able to drive right over their car. The LRX which Landrover have decided to put into production, looks a bit like a space age Freelander and thats no bad thing!

I need a new car.

My car died on Saturday night. My car often dies temporarily but this time it ground to a halt and refused to turn on again. The weather was appalling, very heavy rain and strong winds. As I drove on the dual-carriageway visibility dropped to about 1 foot, in the sense that I could not see out of my windscreen due to the sheer amount of water. My windscreen wipers just couldn’t shift the water as fast as it was coming. A combination of this and the high winds meant that I was blown around all over the place unable to see where I was going.

When I made it into the small lanes near my destination I though I was past the worst of it. The lanes around here are only wide enough for two cars to pass in certain places and they are very twisty. Unfortunately I hit a huge puddle which sprayed water up into my engine. My car gave up and I managed to coast it near enough to somebody’s driveway to get out and push it in, out of the way of oncoming traffic.

Growing up around Dartmoor I was aware of lots of ghost stories involving people stranded in the lanes on a dark and stormy night. I remembered a few of these as I approached the (rather run-down looking) house whose driveway now contained a rather soggy Vauxhall Nova. I turns out the lady in the house was a fan of these tales also as she refused to answer the door. I could see her looking out of the window but she had no desire to see who I was. This was probably a wise move as there is an open prison nearby and I do have ‘LOVE’ and ‘HAT’ tattooed on my knuckles (I lost a finger in a bar fight).

To cut a long story short, I abandoned the car, got picked up and went out on to the pub to drown my sorrows. Luckily one of the people I was meeting is a mechanic and was nice enough to get up early the next morning to tow my car down the lanes to get it going. Thank god for Landrovers! Anyway I think I will get a car like this next, assuming my bet on the Grand National pays off.

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Driving Offroad

I’ve never driven a car off-road. Unless you count the time I skidded onto a verge in the rain. My car had already cut out 5 times on that journey alone (due to the rain and an undiagnosed problem that has since vanished). I was trying not to change gear as this this involved taking my foot of the accelerator, which meant the engine would cut out. That’s my excuse anyway and I’m sticking to it. Either way my car didn’t cope to well off-road probably due to the fact that it’s an old Vauxhall Nova not a nice new Landrover.

This looks like a lot of fun. Its nice to see these 4×4s in action, in their element. It must be handy to know that you will be ok if you run into a frozen mud-pit. Its probably not going to happen on the way to Tesco’s but you never know ; )

More information about off-road driving can be found at Land Rover Owner.