Land Rover Makes Husband's Top 3

Land Rover, Hummer, and a pimped-out minivan make my husband grunt with delight.

Moving to the flatlands of central Indiana was a bit of a shock for my husband Rob, who grew up running around in the mountains of Pennsylvania. I have heard story after story (after story after story) about the adventures he and his buddies took in the woods and gorges of the Alleghenies, and featured prominently in each of them is which vehicle they were in: The Caravan of Doom, Doug's fifty dollar Subaru, Rob's beloved S10 - the first truck he ever bought and the one he used to drive back and forth between Philly and Indianapolis before we married.

The man even took my old '95 Mazda 626 off-roading in the Rockies once. He's unstoppable.

But ask him about the vehicles he would really like to take back for a weekend adventure in PA and the list is pretty short. Below are three of the vehicles that make my husband grunt in anticipation.

Land Rover

Rob is quick to point out that not all Land Rovers are created equal. He's a purist, my husband, and he likes his all-terrain vehicles built to take on brush and mud, not city streets. Given a choice he'd take one of the older models, boxy and sturdy and not at all caught up in the trappings that tamed those later imitations catering to an SUV-crazed market.

Land Rover, second only to Jeep as one of the oldest four-wheel drive brands around, started up in post-war England in 1948. Inspired by the Jeep, the body was constructed out of a light-weight and rust-proof material so resistant to corrosion that some have estimated that up to 75% of those first built are still in operation today.

A quick look at a local dealer's website, however, and Rob's hopes are dashed: Despite the eye-popping price tags (ranging from nearly $40,000 up to over $85,000), there wasn't a boxy, sturdy model in the bunch.

Hummer

Again, Rob's a vehicular snob when it comes to Hummers. Given a choice he'd really prefer the original military model, or HMMWV (High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle, or more widely known as a "Humvee"), upon which the commercial Hummer is based. But being a practical man and knowing that those are not particularly easy to come by, my level-headed husband would probably settle for the Hummer H1 which is "practical" enough to meet his off-roading needs and ugly enough to keep him in his friends' good standing.

A different dealer has the H2 and H3 models available - one for as little as $17,000 - but there wasn't a single H1 to be found. (Lucky for me.)

Minivan (modified)

It's true. My husband's dream car is now, and frankly always has been, the minivan. The tenderness in his voice when he recalls the Caravan of Doom is only matched when he speaks of our daughter and one of our cats - this is high praise indeed. Because for Rob, the bottom line was, is, and always will be practicality. And for him, the minivan is the utmost in practicality: roomy, durable, comfortable, and able to haul a bunch of guys (and all of their gear) the distance. In Rob's mind the ideal ride would be a basic model from the factory with a custom job to deck it out with GPS, a winch, a push bar, an in-dash/fully operational computer, a trailer pull... and this is all that comes to mind off the top of my head.

Now we have a minivan, and I won't lie: I'm a little worried that one day I'm going to come home to find it rigged up for a road trip with the boys. He's already working on me to set up some kind of fully functioning computer, tempting me with dreams of instant traffic & weather information and satellite TV for those long, holiday road trips back to Philly. And he's almost got me, too.

Here's hoping I can find an old Land Rover on the cheap instead. And the only place I'll take it for service is the dependable Euro Motorworks.

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