Ben Fogle - Land Rover - The Story of the Car that Conquered the World

The Jeep was sold and I decided to do the unthinkable, what very few true Land Rover aficionados ever do: I bought a NEW one.

What was I thinking? We all know that buying a brand-new car off the factory line is like chucking money down the drain. The car depreciates as soon as the wheels leave the threshold of the showroom. I don’t think my parents had ever bought a new car. Not a brand-new one. The Fogles had always been rather sensible with money and we all knew that buying a brand-new car was a waste of money, but for some inexplicable reason I found myself in a Land Rover dealership on the A40 in West London putting in an order.

Buying the Land Rover was a big deal. Sure, I had been lucky enough to have cars of my own before, but this was different. I had worked hard for several years and I had saved up some cash. I have never been an extravagant spender (although my wife will probably disagree with that, but in truth it’s more that she is the spendthrift …!). All my life I had dreamed of walking into a showroom and picking out a Land Rover Defender, and here, finally, was my chance to do it. I can remember that day like it was yesterday; the excitement combined with a slight fear of the recklessness and extravagance of buying myself a new car.

The spec was really rather simple. The short wheelbase Defender 90 in silver. I wanted a silver Land Rover. Why silver? I don’t know. Car colour is a strange thing. I included some chequer body plating and three seats in the front. Now this is important – the three seats in the front is part of the Land Rover Defender’s DNA. If we look back to the early Series I and II they all had three seats in the front. It was part of the Land Rover design, but in the latter-day vehicles came the option to add a glove box in the middle.

I am always surprised by the number of Land Rovers that have gone for this configuration. I love the three seats in the front; it is the height of sociability. I remember peering into a McLaren once; the driver sits in the middle while the two passengers sit either side – the industry joke is that they are the seats for the wife and the mistress. With the Land Rover they are more likely to be for the wife and the calf. Next time you are in your car, have a look around at other vehicles and tell me how many have three passengers in the front. There are very few marques that do this – mostly vans. Have a look. Every van will inevitably have three grown men all sitting shoulder to shoulder. Sometimes there is a dog on one of the seats in place of a person, but you get my point.

There is something rather egalitarian about three seats in the front. It takes away the whole hierarchy thing for a start. What is it about the front seat? When I was a child it was like a throne. The front seat was the holy grail of seats and it was always allocated to a strict and unspoken rule of hierarchy, which was usually dictated by age. When Mum and Dad were both in the car there was never any question that they would sit in the front and we children, dogs and parrot would go in the back, but when it came to the school run and only one parent in the car, it became a war zone. ‘Shotgun!’ we would cry as we left the house and raced to the front door. Bickering and arguments would invariably ensue, followed by frosty sulking from the ‘backees’.

The three-seat configuration in the front gives all three passengers the same experience. It is much more inclusive, but of course there is a catch. Have you ever sat in the middle seat of a Land Rover?

A little like everything else about the Defender, it is not the most comfortable experience, indeed, some might call it uncomfortably intimate. The gear stick has to go somewhere, and in the case of the Defender it is located in front of the middle seat. While vans often have the same scenario, they are blessed with slightly more legroom and width. Not so the humble Land Rover, where the long gear stick is positioned between the middle passenger’s legs. Gears three and four are fine, but anything else requires full bodily contact with both gear stick and hand. It helps if you know and feel comfortable with the unfortunate passenger, but where’s the fun in that? I have lost count of the number of people I have taxied around in the middle seat of the Land Rover, their bodies contorted in a kind of twirl in order to avoid all physical contact.

Two months later, my Land Rover was ready. I couldn’t sleep the night before I collected her. I was surprised by my own emotions at the prospect of collecting a new car. She was a thing of beauty, with that unique factory smell that is impossible to replicate once it is lost. I can honestly say I didn’t stop smiling from the moment I stepped foot in that vehicle.

It still amazes me the power of a Land Rover to elicit emotion. Driving suddenly became fun again, and I don’t mean in a ‘pop to the shops as an excuse to get in your new car’ kind of way, but a ‘drive to Cornwall and back in a day’ kind of way. By this point I was working on a number of UK-based shows and I was covering more than 30,000 miles a year. My Silver Bullet went everywhere; although my growing green feelings erred on the side of train travel, I preferred the freedom and anonymity provided by my trusty steed.

Together we covered most of the British Isles. With my beloved Labrador Inca at my side we would drive the length and breadth of the UK to cover rural affairs for Countryfile . A great test of early girlfriends was to see if they could endure a Defender journey to Scotland and back – and I don’t just mean to the border, I mean right up to the Highlands and Islands. I’ll admit it, they were arduous journeys; the shaking and the noise left one feeling slightly frazzled. I must have done that trip a dozen times in a Defender. With nowhere to put a coffee cup or even a bottle of water and too much noise to listen to the radio, they weren’t the easiest journeys, but therein lies the sheer joy of Land Rover travel.

The beauty of the Land Rover lies partly in its characterful imperfections. No matter how noisy or bone-shockingly jarring a journey, I always smiled. She always left me feeling fulfilled. You see, a Land Rover really is so much more than just a vehicle – it becomes an extension of you. You begin to know and understand the nuances and quirks of your car. You can recognise every tiny feature of them. They become something so deeply personal that a criticism of your Land Rover is almost a criticism of you.

It is a well-known fact that the car of choice for the Chelsea mother is a 4×4. Indeed, the characterisation has led to its own term: the Chelsea Tractor. Drive past any school in London’s Kensington and Chelsea between 8am and 9am and you will see an ocean of 4×4s.

Now I will admit that living in Kensington and Chelsea and driving a ubiquitous 4×4 sometimes left me feeling a little guilty. ‘But I use it mostly in the country,’ I would invariably argue when confronted about it by one of my green-conscious friends. Indeed, the Silver Bullet probably saw more of the UK countryside than most Land Rovers, but she still retained an air of urban sophistication that meant she stood out just as much in the countryside. I would often deliberately drive up a couple of verges and through some muddy puddles before arriving at any farms or country fairs. I became conscious of her shiny metallic silver body that jarred against the standard-issue Land Rovers favoured by farmers.

All good things must come to an end, though, and in this case it really was self-inflicted.

Shortly before I rowed the Atlantic in 2005, I had started seeing a beautiful girl, Marina, who would later become my wife. In the early days of our relationship I decided it would be a good idea to drive her down to Devon in the Silver Bullet. It would be the early death knell for the Defender.