Switzerland, 1948-1998

The number of overseas expeditions over the past fifty years that have been accomplished with Land Rover's must be almost unbelievable. When the Land Rover was first released fifty years ago in 1948, someone in the Rover company must have realised that the vehicle would suit expeditions and decided to lend four brand new preproduction prototype Land Rovers, numbers 23, 24, 25 and 26 to the Imperial College Gliding club in Surrey, England. The International Gliding championship, the first since WW2, was to be held in Samedan, Switzerland and would be a great test for the new vehicle to get the British team and gliders to Samedan. The team consisted of three gliders in special trailers. Each trailer weighed approximately two tonnes. Along with seven team members and loads of luggage the Rover company was certain this would put three of their new vehicles to the test. The fourth vehicle went along as a demonstrator so it could be shown to various authorities and Rover agents. To help give publicity, names and addresses of some European Rover agents were painted on the doors of each vehicle.

The Land Rovers performed their tasks very well. The only incident that occurred was that tests back at the factory showed that a bush could seize in the experimental transfer boxes fitted to the Land Rovers. Rover made contact with the team and told them of the potential wheel locking problem. They sent a engineer out to Switzerland to replace all the offending bushes with an updated part. The modification proved very time consuming at first as on these preproduction models. Most of the rear body work had to be removed to get good access to the gearbox. However they improvised with a the end of a broom stick and worked out how to complete the job without removing the body work. After the championships were over (a member of the French team won the championship) the team returned to England having completed the first ever Land Rover expedition. They would never have thought that fifty years later enthusiastic Land Roverists would complete the same expedition as a commemorative trip.

4wd.sofcom.com/News/1998/980808.Swiss.html Pollyanna star of several books.

On the 8th August 1998, 24 members and friends of the Land Rover Register 1947 to 1951 and 11 Land Rovers and 1 Range Rover met up and set off, mostly from England on the 50th Anniversary Commemorative run to Samedan in Switzerland. Of the 11 Land Rovers, four were preproduction prototypes numbers 16, 19, 29 and 32. Even though the whereabouts of all of the four original Land Rovers that did the trip in 1948 is known, none were ready to attend the event again. However number 26's original engine is now fitted in preproduction number 16, which I was fortunate to be able to help put back together with Richard Lines, so he could take it on the run. Three standard 1948 models attended the 1998 run. One of these was Phillip Avery's 1948 model number 778 from New Zealand which he is driving around the world and so made the Commemorative tour part of his Trans Global expedition. Of the other two 1948s one was from Holland and one from England. Three 1950 models attended, our event coordinator Richard Hughes was in his. The other two 50's were an ex-British Military 1950 run by David Pile and Dana-Leigh and 'Pollyanna' a much travelled and written about 1950 model having been purchased new by author Barbara Toy and in which she circumnavingated the world twice, once in the 1950's and again in the early 1990's. The other Land Rover to attend was a 1955 86" station wagon. A 1995 Classic Range Rover was taken along by Charles Crossman. Unfortunately he hadn't finished restoring his 1948 Land Rover. He brought along the original grille and number plate so at least it was there in spirit. I was starting to wish I had taken my 48 along as well.

I was very fortunate though to be in the back of Pollyanna which was on loan to Tom Pickford from Miss Toy. Tom and I rebuilt my/our 1948 model back in Australia in a still unbeaten record of 10 weeks. He was kind enough to offer me one of the spots in the back and the other to a another LR mate of his, Kevin. Tom's girlfriend Hannah was in the front. We motored calmly down to Dover checked in and found some of the others. All but one of the Southern leavers were at the port. The Northern ferry goers were Richard Lines and Andrew Bullas in 16 with a Brockhouse trailer (full of spares, some said) and Ken Wheelwright and Alan Lowther in 19. They were meeting up with the Houben family, brothers Rene, Eric and Rolf in 32 and their parents Huub and Fieny who were taking along their standard 1948 model number 333. We all made it on to the ferry except for the 86" station wagon. As the ferry left I noticed it sitting at the dock waiting for the next ferry. Apparently Derek who owns it needed a new speedo cable and decided to go and get one but was late for the ferry. Who needs a speedo in an early LR anyway. The plan was to do 170 miles to Rheims that evening along the same route taken fifty years ago. Everything went well except that our Leaders Speedo had stopped recording speed. At least Richard's guest on the trip Mike Hardiman could speak French and could read a map well. As we made it towards Rheims those who were camping headed off to a camp site. The hoteliers were due to meet up with those coming from the north and the Houben family. The camping was organised by David Pile and his wife Dana-Leigh who were in the military 1950 model. The only others camping were the Kiwi's Phillip and Gillian and Tom's parents Guy and Sally in preproduction #29.

The next morning I was looking forward to a morning at Moet & Chandon cellars at Epernay (right). Having being to their Australian winery in the Yarra valley outside Melbourne, I was expecting the real thing to be 'unreal'. It was too. Motoring out of the Champagne region into hilly country was beautiful. The hills gave Pollyanna with the trailer tent on a work out and with the temperature in the 30's we started to get fuel evaporation on longer hauls but we made it into Epinal that night. Having a Chinese dinner and a pleasant dip in the pool at our camp site. We arose early ready all keen get on the road to Mulhouse, to see the Musee de l'Automobile. This is one of the best know collections of vehicles in the world with more than 400 vintage cars and over 100 Bugattis. I had jumped in to the Kiwi LR for this section of the journey. We ran into the hoteliers on the way and all made in convoy to the Museum. Two members of the Land Rovers of Switzerland club turned up at the Museum. Our Swiss Patrick in his S11A station wagon painted Zebra fashion and Joachim in a 1957 88" After the museum and lunch we were to be led into Switzerland by our new hosts. We were heading towards Zug to meet so more Swiss roverites and to meet the press who wanted to know more about this mammoth event. The evening's plans were laid out at Zug. The hoteliers were taken away to their hotel by Patrick whereas we were off to leave are vehicles in a barn/warehouse and were going to sleep and eat at another place with some of the other Swiss Land Rover owners. They turned on an excellent evening.

Tuesday 11th August. We had 100 plus miles to go today. This was to be a day of some serious climbing as we were heading into the alps to Pontresina. The further we climbed the more spectacular the country side became. Phillip from his NZ altitude experiences told us earlier that we had probably lost up to a quarter of our power due to the thinner layers of oxygen. We made it to the top, 29 doing a Herculean job towing the trailer and having the luggage on board to be at 2284 meters on the Julier pass. The way down was, not surprisingly, an easy roller coaster like ride. Pontresina is an a valley between all these mountains with a number of other towns and villages surrounding it. The biggest town is St. Moritz which looks almost like a well made Lego town from a distance. Samedan is the next town along from St Moritz and it's airport was the host of the 1948 gliding championship. It is also the highest airport in Europe. We set up camp and wind down as this was going to be our base for the next few days.

Wednesday 12th. This was a day to relax. The weather was excellent and the temperature was sitting comfortably in the 20's. The hoteliers turned up to play as well and Richard L decided 16 was going to drive up the river and park itself on a small rock island. I thought to myself 'I hope I put this thing back together well enough to survive a pounding up the river'. We had a pleasant evening. A Marque had been set up by the Swiss for evenings and we got chatting even though language was a minor barrier. The expressions of the Swiss wives often showed that they were bored with the men talking Land Rover's all the time... Same the world over.

Thursday 13th. We were taken on a drive with the President of the Italian LR club, Flavio in his 1950 model into Italy to a village called Livigo to shop as it is all tax free. Samedan is very close to the Italian boarder, so it wasn't a long drive but was a steep one at times. We drove back up and over another border pass. Polly lead the way but strained a little at these altitudes, which may have been due to a two litre carburettor fitted to a 1.6 was choking her a little. We passed the 2330 metre mark. On the way back Phillip invited me to have a drive of the Kiwi LR (below right). He certainly has it set up quite well. The engine power was easily as good as 997 but it felt a little more nippy due to having put in 4.7 diffs for the world tour. It had done 15000 miles now on its run around the world.

Friday 14th. The basic plan today was that we were going to do what the hoteliers did yesterday and they would do what we did. So we set off to Samedan airport to see the rescue helicopter which was off on some rescue. We went back to camp where we had a quick lunch and then went to tackle the glacier. We could see the glacier easily from the camp. So it was an easy walk about 2 Km's to the top. Everyone was looking forward to this. You realise the power of nature when you realise that naturally forming ice is a short walk away.

Saturday 15. It was a really nice sunny day. The plan was for everyone to do what they liked. So everyone else went off sight seeing whilst Phillip and I gave his vehicle a basic 15000 mile going over. Phillip started to dare me to tell where he had welded up the rusty bits in his chassis on his 48 prior to driving around the world. He had done an excellent job. It must have overall been pretty good to start with. This maintenance session turned into a full blown workshop with Paul Procter turning up for me to perform the magic I did on R16. The only problem was that the distributor was very warn and needed a complete rebuild. Trip leader Richard Hughes then showed his face. I asked him how was he going still without the speedo working properly. He felt it was still impeding progress. That was enough for me to offer to do the speedo on his vehicle. Seeing it was clocking over miles I knew that there wasn't terribly much wrong. The solution is to remove the speedo and pull it apart carefully so you can remove the old perished rubber piece on the pin where the speedo arm seats itself at 0 mph. The arm had stuck itself to the rubber where it sits causing the arm not to move. The afternoon arrangements were to all drive back up the mountain behind us for a big photo shoot. Back down at the camp it was our last night at our destination. A big BBQ was organised. A good festive night. The Swiss presented The Register with a framed colour photograph of preproduction #26 and the Gliders in 1948 which was excellent.

Sunday 16. All sun and blue skies. We were all making ourselves ready to pack and go. The morning plan was to visit a local traditional cheesery just up the river a little. The taste of the cheese was sensational. I really want to go back to that valley again one day. The peace and tranquillity of it all made me feel quite sad to leave after such a short time, but equally determined to return and see the many more areas there are to see. We got back down to the camp, packed up and headed off. It was back on the road. Once again we were happy to stay in our speedy group with David and Dana-Leigh up front navigating. The destination was Andrematt about 90 kilometres away in a straight line, God knows how far with two pass's and hair pins in the way. We came up to the start of the climb and came across the 'No trailers sign'. We played dumb and kept going. We came this way. The postcard-like majestic views are magic. We were heading towards the Rhine river which we ended up driving above for a great length of time.

You were basically driving along the edge of rock walls with the Rhine hundreds of feet below. I had lost count of the number of delightful little villages we had been through and left unexplored. However time wasn't on our side. Looking ahead we had worked out that we needed to get on as much as we could. If we stuffed around and went as we should this would leave the last day run to Calais a 170 mile run which we had to complete by eleven in the morning . We had an extra pass to go just before Andermatt as well that would slow us up before nightfall. The St Gottard pass is 2108 meters. The start was a endless staircase of hairpins. Andermatt is a fine looking town with tonnes of large chalet like buildings in it. We got to a car park outside where the others were staying and came across another group of Land Rover owners. This group were linked to the French Land Rover club and once again the variety of Land Rovers was astounding. The French crowd who were showing us the way back into France.

Monday 17th After contemplating the next four days which at the end would have us back in England we decided to go our own way as we could go quicker and were happier going at 50 mph. The hoteliers mostly wanted 40 mph. Over the last days the camping group basically made its own way off to Calais so that we would make it on time. Our disadvantage was we had all the clearing up to do of the campsites where as the hoteliers could just leave a mess behind for someone else to clean up. We split with the Kiwi's at Lussanne as they are on there way back to NZ. I was looking forward to seeing them in Oz. The run through France was very quick and we didn't really stop for much except for the French supermarkets for cheap goodies for back in the UK. We met up with some of the hotel crowd back at the ferry. Overall we had all had an excellent run. The only things that went wrong with these historic vehicles over the 1900 miles or so were with the period SU fuel pumps that behaved very erratically at times. Even the professionally rebuilt ones. It was a great way to finish off the 50th year with an expedition like run with a few of the oldest Land Rovers. I must thank everyone who was involved with the tour for the great time that I will never forget. Especially my UK hosts who have put up with me for a long time now. And thanks Richard Hughes of the Register and Patrick Amann from the Swiss club for putting together a great tour.

- Michael Bishop, who edits the [80-inch] Register section.

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