Overfinch - still going strong, apparently

Years ago, Overfinch used to produce drastically modified versions of the original Range Rover. If I remember correctly, a typical change involved the replacement of Rover's own Buick-derived 3.5 litre V8 engine with a 5.7 litre small-block GM V8 combined with suitably uprated brakes and suspension. These cars cropped up regularly in Autocar and other motoring mags where they got a lot of favourable coverage.

I hadn't noticed any reporting on Overfinch for ages, and to the extent that I thought about it at all, I'd assumed that the Overfinch concept had probably been overtaken by Land Rover's policy of producing its own performance derivatives of the Range Rover and Range Rover Sport models.

So I was interested to see that Overfinch still seems to be in business, a fact I discovered when I popped into Tesco near Farnham during my recent Verdict testing with readers in Surrey for the Kia Picanto, and discovered the company's smart modern office next door.


Perhaps there's a way of getting our hands on one of these for the Verdict. We shall see.

That explains a lot

Today's FT has an interview with Jaguar's design boss Ian Callum about the prospect of the company being taken over by the Indian group Tata. While he is not particularly critical of Jaguar's current owner, Ford, he does let slip a real gem:

"Offering a rare insight into events at the British luxury carmaker following its purchase by Ford for $1.4bn in 1989, Mr Callum indicated that there had frequently been tensions in the relationship. He disclosed that, in spite of Jaguar management denials at the time, the X-Type small Jaguar – sales of which have fallen far below expectations – was essentially designed in Detroit and presented as close to a fait accompli to reluctant designers and engineers at Jaguar’s Whitley design centre, near the Midlands city of Coventry."

It will be interesting to see what happens to the X-Type once the links to Ford have been cut. It's no secret that sales have been far lower than the company had originally hoped for but I recall reading that the X-Type's financial numbers don't look anything like as bad as they used to now capacity utilisation at the Halewood plant is much higher following the decision to switch Freelander production there with the introduction of the latest model.

Car of the Year

The European Car of the Year rankings are great fun but the organisers' insistence on using a large, diverse international jury has produced some very strange results indeed over the years.

Nobody could complain about the NSU Ro80 (1968), Peugeot 504 (1969) or the Citroen GS (1971), but what about the Talbot Horizon (1979) or the Renault 9 (1982)? Mercedes has only won once in the CotY's history while BMW has never won at all - barmy.

I haven't yet driven this year's winner, the Fiat 500. Anyone who likes cars will want it to succeed in order for Fiat to have a secure future but I still have a few doubts. The 500 probably has even the BMW Mini beaten for cute retro looks, but it will struggle to match the Mini on the road. Unlike that car, which is based on an expensive bespoke platform, the 500 shares with other small Fiats. Then there's the ownership experience; will the 500's quality levels and Fiat dealers' performance be able seriously to compete with the proposition offered by the Mini - just about the best resale on the market and staggeringly cheap multi-year servicing packages? We shall see.

Of the other cars short-listed this year, I particularly liked the new C-Class (brilliant steering - the thing everyone keeps mentioning) and the Kia cee'd - a great car with keen pricing and a fantastic warranty. But the new car that really got under my skin this year didn't even make it onto that short list. I'm talking about the Land Rover Freelander 2. Normally I think of soft-roaders as being a particularly pointless class of car, and the first-generation Freelander scarcely registered with me at all. But the all-new model is a supremely polished product. Subtly improved styling, a great diesel engine, a beautiful interior and a commanding driving position surprisingly reminiscent of that offered by the larger Land Rover models. Great stuff.

UK car production on the up

According to the SMMT, UK vehicle production was up 2.1% at the end of September on a year-to-date basis, at 1.29 million.

This means full year production is likely to be not far off the highs achieved in the early Seventies and then again in the first few years of this decade. Thats a remarkable achievement considering that the last few years have seen the closure of Peugeot's plant at Ryton, Vauxhall's Luton works, and the final car assembly end of Ford's Dagenham operation - not to mention the demise of MG Rover.

It is a little remarked upon fact that Britain has lost almost an entire car industry in the last twenty or so years but gained almost an entire new one as well. The old 'Big Four' volume manufacturers - Leyland, Ford, Chrysler/Rootes and Vauxhall, have with the exception of Vauxhall largely disappeared in terms of UK production. What we have in their place are new Japanese plants run by Honda, Toyota and Nissan, as well as revived, previously niche-bound but now massively expanded prestige operations such as Bentley, Aston, Rolls, Land Rover and MINI - only Jaguar isn't really living up to its potential, and even that may change once the new XF hits the market.

One by-product of this shift is that not only is the industry almost as big as it's ever been, but the average value of the cars being made is probably a lot higher. Notwithstanding the possible rationalisation of Land Rover's and Jaguar's production facilities after Ford has sold these off, I think we will now hold on to most of what is left of the British industry.

Jaguar XF - great car but too few choices?

This is the new XF, the successor to the old S-Type. If the photos and initial reports are anything to go by, this is going to be a great car. Jaguar seems to have finally shaken off its obsession with retro and produced something stunning - dare I say it even looks a bit like a four-door Aston?



But I still have one or two concerns. In the initial line-up, there's no room for the brilliant 3.6 litre V8 diesel that is used to such magnificent effect in the big Land Rovers. In fact, this hasn't made it into any Jaguar model so far. The XF makes do with the admittedly very agreeable 2.7 litre V6 diesel but could do with the extra firepower in order to compete more effectively with the Germans. Come on, Jag, get cracking. This is urgent stuff.

It's lower down the range, though, that I see the biggest problem. Mercedes and BMW sell far more units of the E Class and 5 Series than Jag does of the S-Type. IMHO, that's not because the Jag is inferior but has much more to do with the fact that Jaguar only competes with the top end of the 5 Series and E Class ranges. The lower-end BMW 523i and 520d, and Mercedes E220CDI are convincing products to which the S-Type range had no response, a mistake - for that is what I think it is - repeated with the initial XF line-up. There was a 2.5 litre petrol version of the S-Type for a bit, but this always seemed to be the poor relation of the range.

Really, there are no bad Jags. Rather, I think the problem has always been that the company tends to produce good cars that slightly miss the mark in market terms (too small, say, or too big or too retro) - unlike Land Rover, its sister company, which hits the bull's eye every time. But I'd love Jaguar to prove me wrong with the XF - and I can't wait to get the chance to drive it.

Road tips 6 - A170 Sutton Bank

I'm not sure whether the tip should be to avoid Sutton Bank, a steep and winding section of the A170 near Thirsk, like the plague, or to make a point of seeking it out.

One thing's for sure; it's one of the most distinctive features on the UK primary road network, although I don't believe it is actually, as is sometimes claimed, the steepest UK 'A' road. It nevertheless has a fearsome reputation. HGVs regularly get stuck and caravans are banned completely.


I recently drove up Sutton Bank for the first time in a few years when traveling to North Yorkshire for the Verdict test of the Land Rover Freelander 2. I have to admit, this time around, it didn't seem anything like as hairy or dramatic as I remembered it - put that down to the torque of the Freelander's diesel, I suppose - but it's still an enjoyable drive, especially if you can get a clear run unobstructed by slow traffic. Great views from the top of Sutton Bank, as well.

What's outside today 11 - Land Rover Freelander 2

This is the new Freelander. What's interesting is that this latest version looks very similar to the original, but is in fact much larger.

When I took it out for a short spin earlier on, I was surprised to discover that it sometimes feels more like the big Land Rovers such the Discovery and RR than a Toyota RAV-4 or Honda CR-V. That's because of the commanding high driving position (good) but also the difficulty of judging the position of the front nearside corner due to the car's surprising bulk (not so good).


My immediate thought was that this probably leaves room in the Land Rover range for a smaller soft-roader to slot in below the Freelander - occasionally there are rumours of plans for such a car in the motoring press.


I know Land Rover are facing an uncertain future at the moment but you have to admire the company's ability to come up with one hit model after another. I think the last new Landy that met with a less than rapturous response from journalists and the motoring public was the short-lived 2.0 litre four cylinder petrol version of the first Discovery. I never drove one but if I remember correctly it used the 'O' series engine and it was very slooooow. The Freelander 2 (our test car is the 2.2 litre diesel) is anything but.

Selling Jaguar and Land Rover - what does it mean for Ford in the UK?

I'll return to this subject again - there's a lot to say about how Ford ended up where it is today, who might buy these established British car-makers, and what their future prospects may be, but I'll restrict myself to one or two observations on the Ford rather than LR/Jaguar side of things for the time being.

If Ford really does end up selling Jaguar and Land Rover, that will mark the end of the US company as a big manufacturing presence in one of its best national markets for the first time since it came here in the inter-war period. Ford caused a stir a few years back by running down all production of Ford-badged cars in the UK (although the Transit is still being built in Southampton) but this was always balanced by expansion at Aston Martin (already sold), Jaguar and Land Rover. Apart from that, it's all engine production.

I've long maintained that the British are the world's first genuinely post-patriotic consumers. We really don't care that much where our cars are built, and give home players little or no preferment. Government procurement here is the same; our public authorities seem to be genuinely open in their buying, in a way that those of no other country are. The Ministry of Defence, for example, gave a huge truck contract to MAN not long after that company had effectively closed the UK truck-maker ERF, rather than go with other options such as a rival consortium including LDV that could have revived military truck building as an industry in the UK. That's all the more remarkable given that EU rules on open procurement don't even apply in the case of military contracts. The police seem to buy just about anything in preference to our home-grown cars, as well.

Ford twigged to this early on and suffered no real penalty when it ended UK production of cars bearing its own name. I wonder, though, whether with the sale of Jaguar and Land Rover, Ford is now testing this to the limit. When GM announced a month or two back that Ellesmere Port on Merseyside had been selected as one of the plants that would make the next generation of Astra, for example, it said, to my surprise, that UK production was still probably worth some market share here, even if the advantage was only one or two percentage points.

Of course Ford needs to keep its production costs down, which is why it has shifted the manufacture of Ford-badged cars to other countries (although why high-cost, low-flexibility Germany, where Ford's cars are a lot less popular than they are here, should be a beneficiary, I still cannot understand). But the main reason this is an issue is that mass-market badges like Ford can't really support decent pricing these days and need some sort of 'story' to keep themselves in the public mind, as well distinguish themselves from lots of other purveyors of cars as domestic appliances. The worry for Ford must be not so much that British buyers will suffer a sudden attack of patriotism and shun Ford products - more that factors like local production and links with fancier brands like Jaguar and Land Rover probably still help a bit in terms of generating press coverage and interest in the company, and this is being lost.

Without that sort of stuff, Ford is competing with no particular entrenched advantage, except perhaps the extent of its UK distribution network, against companies like Kia, which, with its generous warranties and low-cost production facilities in Eastern Europe, has a strong story of its own with which it can capture car-buyers' attention.

The footloose pragmatism of the British car-buying public is probably a double-edged sword for Ford. It meant we didn't decide against its products when blue-oval car production was ended in the UK, but it also means we won't hesitate to switch to something else that comes along if that looks more interesting. So far, the excellence of cars like the Focus has held the threat at bay. But it's going to get harder in future, I think.

What's outside today 8 - Range Rover Sport HSE TDV8

This is the Range Rover Sport fitted with the newish 3.6 litre V8 diesel engine.


This engine is by far the best choice for the bigger Land Rover models, so it's a slight mystery that it hasn't made it into the Discovery yet (the Range Rover Sport is much more similar under the skin to the Disco than it is to the standard Range Rover, so I'm assuming it would fit), especially given that the 4.4 litre petrol V8 seems to have been dropped as an option for the Disco, at least for the UK market.


The Range Rover Sport caused a bit of disappointment when it was launched because it didn't look as dramatic as the two-door Range Stormer concept car, but I still think it looks pretty good. I read somewhere that Land Rover might produce a de-blinged version, which would probably be even nicer.

Not keen on big SUVs in general but I usually make an exception for Land Rovers on the grounds of ability, authenticity, looks and Britishness.

Definitions 3 - Land Rover

Land Rover = 'Official Jeep Recovery Vehicle'

At least that's what it said on a bumper sticker I saw on a Defender near Newcastle today. Well I thought it was funny, anyway.

Blast from the past 3 - Austin Gipsy

An interesting one. Ended up very briefly at Goodwood last Saturday with Verdict tester Lee Dalton and the Corsa VXR, where we saw this. Although it looks a bit like an early Land Rover, this is in fact an Austin Gipsy.


The Gipsy was built from the late fifties to the late sixties. What did for it was the coming together of Austin and Rover under the same roof after the formation of British Leyland; the Land Rover was probably always going to come out on top when the post-merger model range was streamlined. The Gipsy was available in short and long wheelbase variants; at 90 inches and 110 inches these were very similar to the two Land Rover wheelbase options. A big difference between the Gipsy and the Land Rover was that the Gipsy had steel bodywork to the Land Rover's aluminium.

Great spots 2 - Land Rover 101 Forward Control

While everyone else was swarming around Joanna Lumley at Solihull today, I spotted this gem tucked away behind a fence on the other side of the road. This is the comparatively rare Land Rover 101 Forward Control, built in the seventies to tow light guns for the Army. It shared its transmission and 3.5 litre V8 with the original Range Rover and '101' refers to its wheelbase measured in inches. Looks brilliant. Now replaced by the Pinzgauer, at least in British Army service.

Solihull Celebration

A brief visit to the Land Rover HQ at Solihull this morning. The occasion was the handing over of the four millionth Land Rover, a Discovery, to the Born Free Foundation in the person of Joanna Lumley.



Haven't got much to say about that really but the four million milestone did get me thinking. It took almost thirty years - from 1948 to 1976 - for Land Rover to build its first million vehicles. In the roughly comparable period since, the company has built another three million. And yet, back in 1976, with Land Rover mired in the wider mess of British Leyland, and little being spent on new models, it seemed very unlikely that the company would keep going for another three decades, let alone triple its production. Just goes to show that it's not all doom and gloom in the British motor industry.