Patina, repaint or something else?

I often hear comments about what a lovely patina some Land Rovers display or what a great paint job someone has done while restoring a Land Rover. I am firmly of the opinion that so long as you, the owner, likes it that is all that matters. Others may not be shy about voicing their thoughts on your choice though and indeed many hours have been spent around campfires or over cups of tea in a cafe debating the merits of patina/repaint or someone else’s colour choice.

There are the show room purists who want their Land Rover to look as good or better than when it left the factory. Hours are spent preparing and then painting their vehicle to make it absolute spotless. For others it’s about the patina and so long as it is mechanically sound they are content to leave it to continue weathering.  But what about vehicles where there is no real patina, maybe someone has tried to repaint it or have painted it a colour the current owner finds distasteful?  Or maybe it was a special vehicle that was repainted standard Land Rover colours and you want to return it to it’s former glory?

My Land Rover was a former police vehicle. When I got it all trace of it’s former life, apart from equipment holes in the dash numerous cut wires and a suspicious head sized dent in the wing, had been removed. So when I came to repaint it recently the questions was return it to it’s Police livery, keep it a Land Rover white (of which there seem to be many variants) or do something else?  I am sure that it would look amazing in it’s 1990s Police livery and may well have resulted in some drivers being more careful near me.  However, I had no intention of seeking out and restoring all the ancillary bits and bobs, lights, aerials, horns, etc. to really make it once more look like a Police Land Rover. So returning it to Police livery was abandoned. What about doing something else? There are many, and varied, standard Land Rover paint colours out there I could have chosen or ‘looks’ such as the Fire and Ice variants. I could have chosen something non-Defender but with around 80 colours used during the lifetime of the classic Defender I am sure there would have been something I could have used even without straying into another models colours or even, oh the sacrilege, another manufactures colour palette. Certainly there are some stand out colours in the original range; Sandglow used on the Camel Trophy vehicles, Icelandic Blue (I’ve not long come back from holiday there), Bronze Green to hark back to the first series Land Rovers ( before they became series!). While not an endless list there is much to choose from.

I didn’t want my vehicle to pretend to be something it’s not though – so that ruled out Camel and G4 trophy colours. I do like some of the electric colours Land Rover have done in the past. The newer cars, Defenders and Range Rovers have a very muted colour scheme, I think they would look most excellent in a vibrant eye-popping Blue or Red to really stand out.  Thats my opinion, others I know disagree and really like the new Defender colours and have put their money where their mouths are and bought one. Mines a family car and with thefts on the increase I didn’t want anything that stood out too much. So I opted for a White, which is what it was originally.

Over my years of ownership I have replaced the rusting capping’s with the most excellent galvanised single piece product from YRM. So I had already broken up the previous white monotone. I bowed to pressure and had some contrasting Black highlights, door and bonnet hinges for example. These match the wheel arches which are also black. Not the roof though, I didn’t want a black roof, or a red roof, or a green roof or… well you get the idea! Not going black was a wise decision it transpired. Earlier this year we drove to the South of France where the temperatures soared to 40 degrees Celsius. Having a black roof would have cooked us even more than we actually were without air-con!  Also during the painting process the gutters were left bare and polished on the external edges then coated with a lacquer. This provided a nice balance to the galvanised capping’s.

I didn’t paint my 110 a stock paint scheme, I didn’t restore it to it’s initial Police livery and nor did I go for something outrageous in terms of a total colour change. It stayed, more or less, as it was. Others may think it would look better in different clothing or feel that the black highlights are a step too far away from the original 1990 single colour look. I, however, like it – and to me that’s the important thing. Now I can sit back and watch it get a patina – it’s a family car and will get dinged, knocked and scratched as it carts people and gear around between cities or along green lanes as we live our Land Rover life!