Quentin Willson

It’s great. I mean it’s definitely the sort of thing we should be celebrating in this country.

Q. So you agree that Land Rover is emblematic of England?

Very much so, if I had to choose a motorcar that is quintessentially British I would most definitely say the Land Rover. It’s unchanged even after all these years and it continues to embody all these wonderful characteristics that we see as being particularly symbolic of the English; it’s rugged, reliable, can be very restrained but comes up with the goods when put in a corner.  It’s very tasteful and can’t be pigeon holed. I think the Land Rover is the embodiment of the indomitable British bulldog spirit.  

It also possesses a colonising influence; for some people the Land Rover is the only car they will ever see in their entire life.  It goes to places no other car has been or could ever go. There’s loads of other stuff like the fact it was born in the post war (1948) spirit. The Americans got there first I guess with the Willys jeep. But then Morris Wilkes (then technical chief of Rover) had a look at it and thought, “we could do this better”. So he built the first Land Rover, which was made out of aluminium because of the shortage of steel. At first it was only available to doctors, midwives and vets.

Q. Why do you think it then became such a huge success in this country?

I think the Land Rover took off so impressively in Britain (then worldwide) because there was no other product in that niche that could fulfil its role. There wasn’t any other vehicle at the time that was as rugged, as adventurous – in that it could go where no other car could. It was also fantastically useful in that you could run machinery off it, you could make fire engines out of it, you could put caterpillar tracks on it, you could have a power takeoff on the back to pump water out of a well.  It became not just a mule, a beast of burden, but actually a small power plant in its own right.

Another reason Land Rover became so successful was because it was fantastically marketed. It perfected tapping into what could be described as a ‘national zeitgeist’ if you like. Rover marketed the Land Rover really, really well. Post-50s Britain saw adverts for Land Rover pushed all over the world, and I don’t think we do that as well anymore. We don’t have the same global clout that we used to have when it comes to the motoring industry. The British motor industry was at its complete zenith during the Land Rover’s heyday. We exported 70% of what we made here and that just doesn’t happen now, indeed the reverse of that is now the case.

Q. Have you yourself always owned a Land Rover?

Yes I have, I’ve had too many to count! I think it’s about 20 or 30 now and I’m on my eighth Range Rover.  The best Land Rover I ever had was a Stage 1 V8 - imagine a pick up type Land Rover in Java Green with an X registration.  It was a wonderful lunge at modernity with its bright vivid channel crossing green, and it had this fantastic 3.5 litre V8 engine which had been de-tuned to stop the driver from killing themselves. So the first thing I did was to take all this de-tuning stuff off, then it would do 130mph with these awful springs that would make you bounce up and down like a donkey cart, the steering had about two and a half inches of free play in it - but it was fantastic. You basically had your life in your hands every time you were in it!

Q. So you’d say Land Rovers are really good fun to drive?

Absolutely wonderful, Land Rover was the first of the 4x4s.  The interesting thing is, you can drive one of these things and you don’t get people pointing censorious fingers at you and you don’t feel inappropriate. People look at you and think you must be a Welsh hill farmer or something. In a way it allows you to have a legitimate space in the social order because it’s a proper hardy 4x4 and it possesses a very strong sense of authenticity.

Q. Do you agree that Land Rover has had a lasting impact on this country and will continue to be a celebrated national icon for years to come?

Most definitely, the Land Rover is imprinted deeply within our conscience, perhaps more than any other car ever to exist in this country - well apart from the Jaguar E type maybe.  Any motor duffer will recognise the Land Rover because it hasn’t changed and it’s unspoilt by progress. In the sense of its core marketing value, I think people buy the Land Rover because they actually like its conservatism, its backward-looking, solid nature and design – its reassuring Britishness. And that’s part of the whole magic of it. Land Rovers are great in the sense that they now have electric windows, power steering, air conditioning and all that. But they could have changed the design of the exterior too as Jeep did with their Jeep Cherokee in the 80s but they didn’t. The Jeep Cherokee once replaced was all curvy and cuddly - and globally absolutely bombed. 

Q. What do you think about the Land Rover being coined a “Chelsea tractor” and “road hogger”?

The big problem with this argument is that it is so one sided - the 4x4 is practically made out as the motoring equivalent to Beelzebub! The thing is, once you’re actually sat in a Land Rover in nightmarish traffic you can’t help but think: “this is the perfect car.”  It’s the urban survival vehicle. You are high up, in an Imperial driving position, and surrounded by pretty solid engineering with this great big chaise.  People tend to give you a wide berth, they let you across at junctions, and they never ever, ever take you on.  It gives you this feeling of real safety. Which is very reassuring if you’ve got your brood of kids in the back. If you think about it, any human species will do it - will protect their offspring from the outside world – and this is the vehicle a large number of people choose to help them do that. Indeed, the Department of Transport have said you’re 5,000 times less likely to be killed in something like a Land Rover than you are in a small car.

Q. So you think the concept of safety rather than status is what attracts people to the Land Rover?

Yes absolutely. You can put all your chattels in the back, drive across continents in them, things like that. There is a wonderful solidity you just don’t get with these other little cars.  That’s why women in particular, without wishing to sound chauvinistic, choose them - they want to protect their brood. The safety factor is definitely why I’m doing 50,000 miles a year in a Range Rover. I know if it all goes horribly wrong and there’s a great big hurricane or flood, I’m still going to get home!

Q. Safety aside, the Land Rover is still deemed by some people as an emblem of snobbery and the middle and upper classes – what do you make of this?  

I totally disagree with that line of thought. I think the Land Rover is utterly, utterly classless. It is often chosen for completely wholesome reasons, like the ones previously mentioned for example. You want to protect yourself and anybody else in the vehicle. You can in fact be really rather rich, or really rather poor in a Land Rover and nobody can financially pigeonhole you, and the more dents the better, which is great.  I mean people who drive a BMW X5 are obviously trying to make a fashion statement, but a Land Rover has that rare commodity - integrity.

Q. And about from an environmental point of view?  Land Rover has a number of impressive sounding initiatives in place to tackle climate change and protect the planet and its inhabitants, but can a major car manufacturer really produce anything more than greenwash?  

I think they are doing their very, very best.  They have been doing an awful lot for years and years and years with all these projects in Africa and things like that, and this is all before this whirlwind of censure. There are people across the world that wouldn’t be alive if it wasn’t for Land Rover emergency vehicles. They also have a hybrid concept car which is very good, and they’re working very hard on having a Land Rover for the 21^st Century – moving it forward. Plus the amount of people who buy Land Rovers is fairly small these days so I don’t think they pose a massive threat to the environment, in fact quite the opposite, because how do you think all these explorers and scientists get there measurements on the ice cap and things? By using Land Rovers. And putting things in perspective, power stations produce 75% of all the Co2 in the world so first and foremost we really need to clamp down on those. Whatever a SUV or a Land Rover emits is a raindrop in the ocean in comparison.

Q. So do you think Land Rover is a bit of an easy target, and many of its critics ill informed?

Let me make an apocalyptic statement here. The bashers - the people who are meant to be in the know - the motoring people with their classic Kalashnikov statements, will never ever, ever have driven a Land Rover. Guaranteed. This is the absolute truth, I can say this without having to look at any statistics and know they have NEVER got their derrieres on those hard vinyl seats and driven one of those things.

Q. What are you looking for in your latest (7-seater Defender) Land Rover?

I own a little chateau in France with a vineyard and so my family and I need something pretty sturdy, pretty big and a car we can happily leave over there – the Land Rover Defender simply fits all our needs. It does the job, plus we can carry lots of wine in the back! It also sends a message out to the French that England is alive and well. If I were to turn up in a Range Rover or a BMW X5 the French would probably cluck their socialist tongues, but if I turn up in my utilitarian Land Rover it’s fine.

Q. Top Gear named the Land Rover their best car ever. Were you involved with advocating the Land Rover via any crazy stunts whilst presenting the show?

No, not really. But I did a thing called the “The Car’s the Star” on BBC2 around the same time which included a 20-minute eulogy on the Land Rover. I had my green one at the time and I used to have a sticker which read: “I love my Landy”. I also featured on the cover of Land Rover Owner International, which is a fantastic magazine; it sells something like 500,000 copies a month.  It’s huge.

To find out more about Quentin Willson go to: www.quentinwillson.co.uk