Staying Alive

NESTLED DEEP IN THE HIMALAYAS, A WHOLE LOT OF CLASSIC LAND ROVERS HAVE BEEN DEPLOYED AS TAXIS TO FERRY GOODS AND TOURISTS WHERE OTHER 4X4S STRUGGLE

- Aatish Mishra

I thought it was going to fall apart. The leaf springs were squeaking as we crashed over the rutted track, the tailgate, the doors and even the steering column rattled and clanked — an absolute cacophony that pierced the tranquil silence that normally hung along this trail. Here I was, sitting in a Land Rover Series I (this one is from the mid-50s), being driven up one of the most treacherous roads I have ever laid eyes on. Narrow, steep and slippery – not the most fun combination when you don’t have as much as a seat-belt for safety. Behind me, a modern Land Rover Discovery calmly crawled over everything that came its way. Wait. Where’d I find a classic like the Series I and how’d I manage to convince the owner to take it up a trail this bad? Well, I’ll have you know that it is a taxi. And it took zero convincing. It has been plying this very route for over 50 years.

Quite the interesting story, this. Land Rover started producing the Series I way back in 1948. Back then, there were plenty of rich tea plantation owners in north Bengal and north-east India. All of them wanted one of these fancy new British-built off-road vehicles for themselves. Some 1,000 Land Rovers were brought in to India over the years through a Rover dealership called Dewar’s Garage in Calcutta and they found their way into the north-east. Eventually though, the plantations changed hands and these Land Rovers fell in to the possession of the locals. A lot of the Land Rovers were simply lost, a lot of them were scrapped, but plenty of them made their way to the tiny town of Manebhanjyang, some 20km from Darjeeling. Here, they were put to work ferrying people and goods up a narrow pony trail along the border with Nepal. The first one arrived in 1958, and they’re still going strong.