A Visit to Malta

I’ve just had a week long holiday with the family in Malta, and thought you might be interested in what it’s like.

Firstly, from a topical point of view, it’s teeming with Land Rovers.  We saw a few Freelanders and a couple of Evoques, several Discoverys of all generations, two Range Rover Classics, several L322 Range Rovers and Sports, but most of all Series and Defender vehicles.  The Series range of the utilities were represented by a wide mix of 109 rag tops and a one hard top and a single Station Wagon, while 88s were seen in rag top and also Lightweight guises.  Defenders were mostly 90 hard tops, but a fair few 110 hard tops and station wagons.  I really didn’t expect to see so many of them, especially since Malta’s roads are relatively narrow and have to cope with continuous twists and hills, and parking in towns looks really tough.

There is clearly a love for Land Rovers in Malta.  The newer vehicles looked well cared for and most of the Defenders and Series vehicles appeared to be modified, the Defenders often having lifts and big tyres, and the Series vehicles having all sorts of mechanical and body mods.  I had the pleasure of meeting Patrick Zammit Haber (Gremlin), who I’ve had contact with for a few years through LR forums, and got to see his highly modified 109 (as well as his very entertaining kids) when he drove across the island to meet us at our hotel.

Pat and I have shared some ideas in the past on various mods and jobs, including the rear axle disc brake conversion, so it was good to see how similarly some of his alterations are to mine, but he has gone much further than me in his mechanical updating of the 109.  He was one of the first people to ever fit a 200Tdi to a 109 back in 1993, and has an exceptionally neat engine bay.  That he retained the original bonnet and grille panels is a small wonder, because in addition to finding space for the Tdi ancilliaries, he also had to move the engine forward to fit a Defender transmission.  Malta requires a lot of stop-start driving and on steep hills to boot, so a Tdi could get through Series transmissions relatively quickly.  He still has the original axles and suspension, though with a disc brake upgrade (the front brakes were his own concoction and avoid the pitfalls of the after-market conversion kits), so it’s very low geared with the 4.71 diffs, but that probably suits the local roads quite well.  His power steering conversion, using the Adwest 4-bolt pas box, looks like a factory fit, and benefits from the extra space available by using Defender inner wings in place of the flat SIII inner wings (the outer panels are still SIII).  I particularly like his rear seating system:  Pat used a double seat from a van or mini-bus, with integral seat belts, mounted on cargo tracks to have quick release fixings so that they can be removed or refitted in seconds without the need for any tools. I’m hoping to get some photos from him soon to share with you.

Land Rovers aside, I loved Malta.  The islanders are uniquely friendly, especially to British visitors, and are all fluent in English, due to the island’s long history with the UK, and it’s incredibly welcoming.  There is a huge amount of history to learn about here, from the oldest free-standing stone structure on the planet (about 6,000 years old), to the beautiful capital Valletta, the immaculate old fortress town of Mdina to the ornate and miraculous Mosta Dome.  We were a little lucky with the weather, given the October dates, and were able to spend a couple of days at the beach and enjoy a warm, gin-clear sea at Millieha.  I have to say we enjoyed the place so much that I’m giving loose consideration to transferring there in the future with my existing job (shipping the cars down there, since Malta has the same road system and right hand drive as the UK).  I can’t recommend it highly enough for a visit!

I’ll update this post with some photos later.