Chapter 12: A Whole Heap of Problems 28.10.2022

Another week and to start with it has been pure bliss driving Raymond around. There have only been a few minor issues, such as a side light bulb needing to be replaced. The issues of the past seemed to be just that, in the past, or so I thought.

The problems started on Friday; I started him up to go to work and put him in drive. Normally, this is when the car would move, but not today. I decided that maybe this was just a blip and that I should just try again. Put it back into park, waited a moment, said a little good luck prayer, and then moved the shifter into drive and… nothing yet again. I swear Raymond just likes making me late for work. I thought to myself, what’s that old saying “Have you tried turning it off and on again?” So, I did just that, turned Raymond off and back on again and then proceeded to put him in drive once more and hallelujah, this time he moved off like there was no issue at all. Having spoken to the technicians, we believe that a solenoid might have got stuck and that it should be a recurring problem.

Sunday then came around, and I thought, let’s go for a little drive, clicked to open and there was a telling silence that something was wrong. Maybe the key was just dead, and my negative thoughts would be proven wrong… I wasn’t wrong. Raymond was as flat as a pancake, no battery at all. So, instead of going out for a relaxing drive around the countryside, I am in the garage digging out the battery charger and hoping that he is alive for the morning drive to work.

Thankfully, the outcome was good, and he came alive with full power in the morning. Something is definitely draining this battery and we need to get to the bottom of it. We have reason to believe it is not the Sat-Nav, however that leaves us with more questions than answers. Oh, Raymond, you do make life interesting….

In the previous two blog posts about these toy cars we looked at two pairings of vehicles and in this post we will look at the last of our pairs. The third pairing is the army vehicles.

First up is the Series III station wagon in the camo livery with the classic spare wheel on the bonnet. This car just looks like it belongs in a war film, driving through the gritty land, mud everywhere. And they were used a lot, not just by the British Army, but also the Australian and New Zealand armies too.

In my research into the military usage of the Series III, I was shocked to find that a lot of the time they did not use the hard top like in this example here, but instead would use soft top models.

The other car in this pair is a Series II LWB Fighting Vehicle that was designated FV18061/2 which stood for General Service or Fitted for Radio. That meant that this truck was customised to fit its purpose. It was fitted with twin fuel tanks, pusher bumpers, military electrical equipment and had longer spring hangers, which allowed the use of larger section tyres when needed.

The Sankey trailer behind the car is also a fighting vehicle designated FV2361. It was a ¾ ton trailer, equipped for either carrying cargo or fitted with specialised equipment, such as water-purification plants, radar equipment or welding equipment. The body was designed to be watertight so that it could be floated across bodies of water.

On the box it states that this vehicle was used by the 1^st Battalion, Royal Green Jackets, which would date the model between post 1966 as that is when the Royal Green Jackets were formed. They were a light infantry unit, and the 1^st Battalion were based in Weeton. The unit is most known for being deployed to Northern Ireland in the 1980’s as well as West Germany prior to the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Looking at all six of these cars, it shows how influential and useful Land Rover were and still can be in the world. They are multi-purpose vehicles that can be applied to many different situations and are also highly adaptable. And yet whilst they may all be adapted to fit the job description, at the heart of it, is still the everyday civilian car that Land Rover make. And that makes the everyday car, that little bit more special, because it could be a police car, it could be saving lives on the beaches, or it could be delivering essential cargo in a warzone.

Chapter 11: A little Recharge                                                               19.10.2022

Raymond has been working like a trooper, so he had a little holiday for two weeks. However, we aren’t too sure if Raymond liked the holiday as when we went to unlock him, he wouldn’t. When we manually unlocked the car, there were no interior lights. When we tried the ignition, nothing happened. Raymond was out for the count. Luckily, we have jump start packs in the workshop so we managed to get one of those out to Raymond, but no luck, he still wouldn’t start. Perhaps this issue was bigger than just the battery, maybe, just maybe this was the end for Raymond.

Not being one to give up so easily, especially not on Raymond, I persevered, placed the jump pack on him for another go, Boom, we were running.  I left him ticking over whilst I got ready and within 5 minutes, we were on the road heading for Louth, every mile charging the battery a little bit more. OR was I? I had no lights on the dash so assumed the best.

Once back at the Workshop, we tested the alternator, it was working, phew! Next the battery, all ok, or will be after a charge, phew! Then the realisation that Raymond must have a battery drain, oh no. I left Raymond with the Workshop for a while, I think he likes it there as he behaved. A few hours later I am informed the drain has been traced to the Sat Nav which is constantly live. We need to sort this out so Raymond can soldier on.

Following on from the previous post about the toy cars, we are going to be looking at another pairing of cars; specifically Coastguard Land Rovers.

Starting off with the Corgi Classics 50 Years of Land Rover,  Series IIA Station Wagon in navy blue with a yellow roof. The car also has searchlights and a siren on the roof and of course the spare wheel on the bonnet. Written across the side is HM Coastguard and Marine Rescue.

Once again I had trouble finding this specific model in the internet’s archives, however I did manage to find a Series III in a very similar livery. The similarities between the design of the two cars makes me confident that at some point, somewhere this Series IIA was roaming the beaches of the UK saving lives.

I can imagine that the offroad capabilities would be very useful when traversing beaches and rocks to find stranded or injured people.

The second model car is not so great a story as this one I believe to be completely fictitious for a number of reasons. Firstly, being the livery. I could not find one single example of any UK coastguard vehicle looking anywhere near this. Then it got me thinking, this one doesn’t say HM Coastguard, so perhaps it is not English. I looked at the design and searched European countries with coastlines and then also the USA as I feel the more cartoon like text and logo might be more in line with the Americans, however no luck again. I then scrapped the idea of another country because I noticed it was right hand drive, so the conclusion I came to is that someone at Corgi wanted to design a Coastguard car, chose a vehicle that is in line with the accurate vehicles and then created a unique design based off of the designs already in place.

Whilst one of these cars might not be a legitimate Coastguard vehicle, it once again goes to show how the versatility of Land Rovers have been used in a positive and life altering way. To think that since researching these cars, we have seen the mail being delivered by Land Rovers, gas and electric brought to people’s homes by Land Rover, law and order being kept in Land Rovers and now the beaches and coastlines kept safe by Land Rover’s. It is amazing how much one company have helped shape the history of a country.