Tom Gardner wrote:

They had a neat simple and foolproof design principle for
minimising the damage to the car when travelling over rough
terrain. The stiff suspension caused the occupants to
bounce around so much that they would voluntarily keep the speed
below that at which the car would be damaged. Well, I'm sure
there's an element of truth to that anyway, particularly without
seatbelts.

My Rover xc manual advised always wearing a seat belt when going off
road "because it stops your head from hitting the roof so often".

In any case, any one thinking of serious off-road in a long wheel-base
machine replaced the rear springs with the HD units.

The Land Rover's crumple zone was built into the other
vehicle, of course.

Too true.

Yes, but they would still get you home even with a twisted chassis.
And the chassis could be repaired by the local blacksmith.

I'd never knock the series II or III. Mine did a London-India out and
return in 10 months without any problems apart from a tendency to
consume speedometers that I never got to the bottom of, a clutch change
in Mysore and a clutch slave cylinder replacement in Turkey.

It was a simple machine and easy to maintain with relatively few tools:
almost everything could be removed and reinstalled with only 3 or 4
different ring spanners and a screwdriver.


--
martin@ | Martin Gregorie
gregorie. | Essex, UK
org |