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RangeRover Series One
How one of the worst vehicles I’ve ever owned changed my perspective forever
Well over thirty years ago I bought a pre-owned Series One Range Rover exactly as seen in the photo above. By the time the vehicle came into my possession it was already several years old but at that time the successor model had not yet been launched. Furthermore, the version I purchased had four doors and so was infinitely more desirable than the two-door version that preceded it. My Rangie, therefore, was still state-of-the-art when it came to UK four-wheel-drive vehicles and was something of a status symbol, at least for those who’d never climbed inside one.
I’d acquired it not for the social cachet but because I was doing a great deal of driving at the time. Back in those long-ago days before traction control and more adequate tire compounds, every winter would see cars sliding and skidding across British roads. Even a thin veneer of rain or the tiniest dusting of snow would bring the nation to a halt. The Rangie, however, had four-wheel-drive and therefore, in theory at least, should be able to boldly go where no cars had gone before.
It’s difficult today, when even the cheapest vehicles have sophistication undreamed of in those faraway days, to remember how truly awful UK cars were back in the 1970s and 1980s. The Rangie…
