Range Rover Chieftain like an elixir of youth

Time flies… and so does this tricked-up old Rangey.

The new Range Rover Chieftain

Age. It’s like a sniper, creeping silently through the undergrowth. Each day I look at the birthdays column in the paper, and each day I’m incredulous at how old people have become. Sting is 68. That’s Sting, the scrawny youth who did Roxanne in a parachutist’s boiler suit. He is now a pensioner. Then there are other people’s children; one minute they’re sitting in a high chair with spaghetti sauce round their mouths, and then, after you turn your back for a moment, they are on Instagram, on a boat, showing off their baby bump.

I’m 60 now, but I still feel 19, so it’s always a surprise when I jump over a farm gate and, on landing, find that my knees hurt. And there’s no getting round the fact that last night I went to bed with a bottle of milk, having put my spectacles in the fridge. Age is quietly nibbling away at my joints and my head. I still think I can power-slide a Lamborghini and serve a tennis ball at 100kmh, but actually I can’t do either of those things. Without noticing it I’ve become a grey, ghostly echo of what I used to be.

And so it goes with cars. I look sometimes on classic car websites and I imagine what fun it would be to have a 1966 Alfa Romeo GTA. Or perhaps a Lancia Fulvia HF. Or a BMW 3.0 CSL. We like to think that cars haven’t really come on at all in the past 50 years, so any of these would be an interesting and better-looking alternative to the charisma-free eco-boxes in showrooms today. But actually, cars have come on. Quite apart from the fact they have air-conditioning and satellite navigation and electrically adjustable seats, they are so much more usable than they used to be.

It’s the refinement that has changed most. Even the most dismal modern car is brilliant at masking imperfections in the road surface, whereas the cars from our youth were appalling; they lurched, shimmied, rattled and creaked.

All of which brings me to the subject of today’s column. For some reason the “classic” Range Rover is now regarded as desirable. I don’t understand this, because it’s not glamorous or rare or even very exciting. It’s just old, so I can’t see why well-cared-for examples now change hands for serious money. I seem to be on my own here, though.

A friend of mine has invested in an engineering firm that modernises old Jensen Interceptors, and now it has turned its attention to the classic Range Rover, creating what it calls the Chieftain. “Would you try one?” he asked. And before I had a chance to think of an excuse, there it was, in my driveway. It looked silly parked next to the 12-year-old version I use on the farm, and titchy compared with the three-year-old example I use for trips to London, and I couldn’t really see why on Earth I’d want to drive it anywhere. But, out of duty, I did, and then all weekend I drove nothing else.

First things first. The standard Rover V8 is gone, and in its place is a 6.2-litre V8 you might find in a Chevrolet Corvette. It churns out 320kW, which is fired via a General Motors six-speed automatic gearbox into Land Rover’s four-wheel-drive system. The result is hilarious. You put your foot down, and, with the sophistication of a covered wagon falling down a hill, the gearbox drops a cog or two, the rear end squats and you’re off on a headlong charge that will cause all your passengers to ask you to “stop doing that”.

Jensen International Automotive, the UK firm that makes the Chieftain to order (it is not available in Australia), has done a remarkable job of making everything not fall off. It has changed the chassis, fitted fully independent suspension and uprated the brakes, but there’s no getting round the fact that you don’t really drive the finished product. You just hang on.

It’s completely intoxicating, and I haven’t got to the best bit yet. You can, if you want, have flared wheelarches and snazzy paint, but the car I borrowed was Austin Princess beige and, apart from the wheels, looked completely standard. It didn’t even sound particularly amazing, even though it had a hand-built stainless-steel exhaust system. This meant I could draw other road users in and then leave them open-mouthed in disbelief as my ancient old classic roared off like a jet-propelled space hopper. I haven’t done that sort of thing for years, and it made me feel, for the first time in a while, young.

I drove my newer Range Rover this morning, and I felt 60 again. It was depressing, and I sort of want the old one back. There’s a price to pay for that, however, and it’s $320,000. That’s a lot if you look at this as a car. But if you look at it as an elixir of youth, it has to be the bargain of the century.

© THE SUNDAY TIMES