Land-Rover to give NZ drivers a taste of the real thing

By ALASTAIR SLOANE motoring editor

It started as an informal morning, driving Land-Rovers with former Army instructors over a British off-road course used for Camel Trophy training. It ended with a semi-formal lunch cooked by the Queen Mother's personal chef and hosted by a retired Army officer who insisted that each serving of the dessert steamed pudding should be splashed with whisky.

The setting was Eastnor Castle, a sleepy 200-year-old estate within an hour's drive of Oxford. The chef was a Mrs Shepherd, moonlighting from Clarence House. The officer was Major Benjamin Hervey-Bathurst, a fluent French speaker who spied for Britain in France during the Second World War and who helped to form the elite Special Air Service.

Eastnor Castle, more magnificent manorhouse than traditional castle, has been in Hervey-Bathurst's wife's family for many years. Mrs Shepherd is family.

Part of the estate includes a 16th-century coach road between Oxford and the spa town of Cheltenham. The boggy road, though not the most demanding part of the course, seemed more suitable for highwaymen like Dick Turpin.

The branches of trees along its way formed a natural canopy, in some places dark and brooding. "There be dragons."

There are dragons today, but they are not menacing. Not on the estate anyway. They are SAS soldiers, who also use the property for driver training. SAS headquarters is about 50km away.

"You don't often see them, one Land-Rover instructor said. "You might be driving through a muddy cutting when suddenly a trailbike sails over the top of your vehicle.

"Before you realise what's happening, it's gone. Just one of the SAS boys having a bit of fun."

The instructors are forever offering tips - like how to keep the front wheels of the Land-Rover pointing in the right direction by feeling resistance through the steering wheel.

"An untrained driver on a tight and twisty muddy road with little room either side naturally wants to keep some distance between him and obstacles on his side," said one.

"Therefore he tends to unconsciously steer a right-hand-drive vehicle towards the left all the time, at worst building a wall of mud in front of his wheels and eventually running out of traction and road.

"We keep telling novice drivers to move back to the right, which is nearly always the middle of the road anyway."

The instructors also demonstrate the vehicles to potential buyers. One had been showing off the Land-Rover Defender to the Estonian armed forces.

"The Estonians had narrowed down the four-wheel-drives they wanted to about three makers. The final test was done over shingle on a steep track. We had to drive down to the bottom, turn hard right and drive up another equally steep track.

"The other drivers stopped at the bottom to change gear and lost traction and couldn't get going again. I kept the Land-Rover moving to maintain grip and made it back up. Land-Rover won the contract."

For all its four-wheel-drive appeal - and splendid lunches - Eastnor Castle isn't officially part of the Land-Rover Experience, a franchised worldwide network of off-road courses.

The first was set up in Britain, near the company's Solihull headquarters in the Midlands. France, South Africa, Spain, North America, Sweden and Portugal followed.

Now it's New Zealand's turn. The company is putting the finishing touches to 240km of road on 700ha at Paradise Valley, near Rotorua.

"We have always wanted to secure land for Land-Rover's exclusive use for people to enjoy the vehicles in an environment they were designed for," says sales manager Robin Colgan.

"We have accumulated a great deal of experience in training and running off-road events in New Zealand. The terrain is suited to all levels of expertise from the extreme to the accessible, and guarantees to put both vehicles and drivers through their paces in a safe and controlled environment.

"The reaction when somebody takes a Land-Rover off-road for the first time is something we never get tired of and we plan to get a lot more New Zealanders into this new facility."

The site, which will open next month, includes a reception and conference centre, test track and training area. The course will be identical to that offered internationally and the New Zealand instructors will be trained at Land-Rover headquarters in Britain.

"This venture will enable us to take New Zealanders deep into their own country, potentially for days at a time, and provide them with a world-class outdoor adventure," says site director Dave Patterson. "I have driven off-road all over New Zealand and I was amazed by the quality and sheer variety of terrain at Paradise Valley.

"We can be working our way up steep inclines surrounded by native forest one moment, only to find ourselves under a canopy of ferns and driving through thick mud more reminiscent of deep jungle the next."

The Land-Rover Experience will also offer corporate challenges in the spirit of the Camel Trophy, the exhausting international off-road event where entrants have been known to fall asleep at the wheel.

Those who just want to nibble at the edges of the rough stuff can choose a fishing and hunting package. It comes with a better bed back in Rotorua.