"31ModelA" (car)
12/23/2013 at 12:46 • Filed to: None
0
6|
"31ModelA" (car)
12/23/2013 at 12:46 • Filed to: None | 0
| 6 |
There is a treasure trove in Birmingham, AL and those of us too stupid to care about wiring need to know about it. (Thanks to !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! for inspiring me to finally report this.)
I was born and raised in the South and have never lived elsewhere (I can even read!). So when I moved to Birmingham not too long ago I knew what to expect: 350s, 250s, 150s, some Rams for those that want to be different , and more than a few Cadillacs. (I'm probably psychic.) What I didn't foresee, however, was a pocket of car culture that defies reason.
Huntin' trucks are standard in Southern cities surrounded by huge tracts of forest. They're lifted, racked, stacked, and camoed in any number of ways. That said, old British and German "sporting vehicles" were not what I expected. Certainly many of these exist solely to be seen in the Whole Foods parking lot, but others - many others - are serious off-roaders with pedigree. I saw more Defenders in my first week of living there than I had ever seen on public roads anywhere.
What I learned by accident - nearly causing an accident - was that we had a dealer in town who specializes in just these kinds of gems. When I drove by !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! for the first time, I literally stopped in the middle of the road in awe. I have visited their lot a handful of times, always surprised to see what they've found around the country. From original condition Series Land Rovers to the same breed in fully and faithfully restored condition.
But my recent drive by revealed something altogether different. A fleet of old military Land Rover and Mercedes. I know nothing about the origins of these vehicles other than their story brought them to the streets of Birmingham. While any Series or Defender (or G-Wagon for that matter) is cool, something about olive drab really brings out the beast in them. It's a badge that confirms what we all know - these are workhorses that were built from the ground up to dominate terrain the world over. That, and UNIMOG!
Oh, and a Spanish via Iran Defender "knock-off" (really just a licensed reproduction of sorts) called a Santana (PS10, I believe).
My only complaint right now is that their website is woefully short on pictures of this odd military fleet on 4th Ave. S. That and the fully restored Series II.
If you're in the area, it is definitely worth a look.
HammerheadFistpunch
> 31ModelA
12/23/2013 at 12:48 |
|
This is a short list of things Americans can't have but desperately want...thanks for that.
RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht
> 31ModelA
12/23/2013 at 12:52 |
|
You have the Santana Spain/Iran thing slightly backwards. Santana sold off their equip to Morattab, which updated the company's unlicensed knockoffs to unlicensed knockoffs made from an evolved form of a licensed knockoff.
Santana was always officially recognized, but didn't get rights to the Defender, so made their own from a Series III, more or less.
Nice PS-10 and SIII, btw.
|
31ModelA
> RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht
12/23/2013 at 12:54 |
|
That's right. After I first saw this thing I dove into the lineage and was quite surprised to learn how they (and others) played into the Series evolving into the Defender we know today. Very cool backstory.
|
31ModelA
> 31ModelA
12/23/2013 at 12:54 |
|
Oh yeah, and this one has blue lights! http://rmr4x4.com/web/1178/vehic…
|
RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht
> 31ModelA
12/23/2013 at 12:57 |
|
As a followup, Series Landies made it to the US in highly concentrated pockets for the most part. There was always demand, but actual dealers were few and far between, and much in the way of hunting truck/other sales took place in much higher quantities around those locations, to locals. There was a LR dealer in one area of AL, IIRC, another in the middle of N. GA somewhere, and...
...one in W. NC named "Leroy Harrell" who sold a lot of Landies to hunters, general iconoclasts, and some of the hippie back-to-nature types endemic in some of the western parts of Buncombe county. My dad's SIIa pickup belonged to a hippie who'd gotten it a step or two out of Harrell's, and one of our SIIs was a bear-hunting truck in the same area.
TheBloody, Oppositelock lives on in our shitposts.
> 31ModelA
12/23/2013 at 13:16 |
|
I'm starting to think I live in the wrong part of the country...