Sunday, June 20, 2010

A minion of the Prince of Darkness “Lucas”

Landrover

Any owner of a British car can tell you horror stories of Lucas electrical. Some of the classic jokes are:
The Lucas Electric motto: "Get home before dark."
British car switches have 3 positions: Dim, flicker and smoke
Lucas refrigerators, the reason the British drink warm beer!
Lucas made vacuums, it was their only product that didn’t suck!

The odd thing is that once you get the British car bug, you are bitten for life. They get some things just right. Taking a MGB sports car onto the old highway to Squamish on a sunny day was exhilarating, the V8 whipping the little car around and the tight suspension holding you right to the road. Cast your eyes onto the lines of a classic jag and you know they got that right. The sound of the V12 was pure sex! In that Rolls Royce Merlin kind of way. Even the landrover (My favorite) had just the right amount of ugly to make it fit the image perfectly. For many third world people in the 1950-60's the Landrover was the only vehicle there was.
I got my start when my brother bought a short wheel base 88. Shortly after I got mine, I was so excited that when I paid for it, I didn’t even realize it had a winch! So far I have owned 3 Landrovers (and enough parts to build 2 more!) and 2 Rangerovers. Yes I have the bug bad. I will talk more about Landrovers at a later date.

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