Meant To Be

This 1956 Series I Mountain Rescue ambulance is probably the only one of 25 built that survives. It’s a remarkable vehicle with a fascinating story. Nick Dimbleby reports

- Nick Dimbleby

YOU need to meet my mate Mike,” my recently-acquired brother-in-law Graham kindly told me at his wedding to my sister Caroline. Mike, it transpired, was involved in a very special Land Rover project, and having heard a little bit more about it from Graham, it seemed that I did indeed need to speak to Mike. I hadn’t planned on talking Land Rovers on such a family day, but when they are a passion and you live, sleep and breathe them, they tend to find you, even when you’re not looking!

Mike, you see, is a person who also lives for his Land Rovers. His partner Maryana is similarly afflicted, and when you add their friend John Allen into the mix, you’re really in a whole heap of Green Oval trouble. Mike is an electrical engineer by trade, but he’s also a pretty handy metal fabricator. Maryana manages the workshop of a family-owned garage, while John is one of those people who just gets stuff done. His father was a design engineer at Rolls- Royce Aero, so he’s spent his life surrounded by engineering, parts, technical drawings and tools.

This trio was the perfect combination to take on a project that would see most people heading for the door: restoring a hedge full of Series I bits including a coachbuilt back body that was once an aluminium-bodied RAF ambulance. Having

The ambulance interior was completely rebuilt from scratch, including full length ‘elephant hide’ seats made by Undercover Covers of Birmingham served its useful life in the military, it was turned into a family camper during the 1960s, then – having been parked up in 1969 – lay dormant outside for 46 years in a garden just outside Penzance. When you see the photos of what the trio started with, it’s a wonder that they started at all.