40th Anniversary Heritage Run (Range Rover)

Well, the show at Gaydon wasn’t too good, but we did take part in the Heritage Run to mark the Range Rover’s 40th Anniversary.

Only one vehicle seemed to need attention from the arranged AA patrol man (in an AA 110), which was a fairly early Classic, which they did get going in time and was able to take part; that was better than we expected and a lot better than two years ago on the Land Rover 60th Anniversary Run where at least six Land rovers had mechanical trouble at the Solihull start.  The run went a lot smoother than last time, with no-one getting lost and group order being well maintained, but marshalling into the end of the run seemed to take a long time.   The weather was probably partly responsible for the poor turnout at the main part of the show, which seemed to comprise of mainly those people who had taken part in the run itself and few others.

There were a handful of stalls, some of which were useful and others not.  Land Rover at least put in an appearance themselves, this time, with their Terrapod and a skid pan for test drivers.  Catering was truly awful, with just one burger van selling hotdogs and burgers (almost ineddible) at over £3.50 each (that’s just the plain ones – relish, cheese and so on cost a lot more).

We saw a few really nice vehicles from the run – a few very nicely restored Classics, some gorgeous series I 80″s and a few TACR2s.  We have our rally plaque and the Heritage Run pack-up, and it was good to be a part of a big Range Rover birthday, but I don’t think we’ll take part in another of these runs – it’s a combined total of six hours’ driving, and the show at Gaydon was just too much of a let down.   Maybe the 2048 centenary will be worth going too…