By: Blonde Two
The Two Blondes (plus one bearded gentleman) have spent a fair part of the last three days in a minibus driving around Exmoor. Exmoor is a beautiful place to drive around and offers a fair selection of adventurous roads, narrow gaps and overhanging hedges for added excitement. Blonde One’s minibus confidence grew visible with each mile. Even the most lovely of places though can benefit from a minibus game or two to jolly things along.
The Tractor Versus Landy game (Landy = Landrover) came about because one of our evening journeys seemed to involve a fair amount of stopping to avoid both types of vehicle. I love tractors, Blonde One loves Landies and hey presto, a game was born. It was very simple to start with – one point for each Landy and one for each tractor, to be counted and recorded on each leg of our student-shadowing trips.
And then the discussions started. What exactly constitutes a Landy? There will be Defender owners out there who will claim that Range Rovers, Discoveries and Freelanders have no claim to the title. After some heated negotiation, Blonde One and I agreed that all of the above should be included but that quad bikes and those little trucky things that farmers drive would be excluded. We did add a bit of interest when we decided that any tractor or Landy that was towing a trailer or piece of machinery would earn double points.
A score sheet was drawn out (would you expect less from the Two Blondes?) and a whole day of excitement and lots of counting ensued. We did enjoy ourselves and the youngsters joined in when they had finished their expedition. The results were interesting; on the first three journey legs (still on Exmoor), the scores were quite even but once we headed down off the moor, we got to a count of nearly 100 Landies before I had spotted a single tractor. Blonde One had me beaten good and proper!
I’m glad you feel that way about Freelanders. A person I know bought a new Freelander on his retirement, imagining it would last him the rest of his natural. Well he’s still alive but the FL isn’t. It gave him endless trouble, he managed to get rid of it, whereupon virtually every moving part collapsed and had to be replaced – still under warranty.
However in the UK we tend to be LR-centric. In places where the work is hard, the distances are enormous, and main dealers are remote (eg, Australia) the LR is regarded as a fragile bag-of-nails. The big FWD Toyotas are preferred. Mind you this was before Toyota, previously an international yardstick for reliability, started recalling almost all the vehicles they’d ever made for such minor matters as throttles that stick open and brakes that don’t brake.
If only you knew what a conundrum of loyalties that comment has provoked in me. Blonde One drives a Freelander and I love travelling in it, I used to drive a Discovery but Mr B2 has a “big FWD Toyota” now. I have enjoyed all of them but the Defender has a sex appeal that is unrivalled by any (except maybe a large Massey Ferguson)!