This Series 1 Land Rover Will Make You Appreciate The Beauty Of 'Basic'

Modern Land Rovers come with lots of fancy gizmos and gadgets designed improve their off road performance as well as comfort their drivers. They have their advantages, but they're a far cry from the delightfully simple Series I Land Rover.

In a way, the Series I is closer to a Citroën 2CV than a 2015 Discovery. Simple but purposeful, and leaning heavily on "clever engineering" to keep costs low.

The particular Series I we have here belongs to Harry Metcalfe, formerly of EVO and now at Jaguar/Land Rover, and is a 1954 86" wheelbase version. He uses it every day to tend his farm and occasionally go to the pub, and I can't think of a better car to do that in.

The old workhorse is pretty bare, but that's what makes it so effective 60 years after it was made. The fuel filler is right under the driver seat, it can be started by a crank, it has an actual fan for a heater with flaps that close for defrosting the windscreen, it has individual wipers. Needless to say, it's quite simple.

I love modern cars as much as anybody else and I don't mean to sound like an old fart by saying this but I struggle to imagine a modern Land Rover will age as well as this one. There's hardly anything to it, and that's precisely why it has remained so good for all these years.