LRLife meets the Dunsfold collection
In the spring of 2023 whilst attending the LRM show, I was talking to the folks at the Dunsfold collection about the great work they do. It was mentioned that, now they had a permanent building where a selection of the collection was housed, they were starting to do open days for groups. The plan was hatched. If I could get enough people, Land Rover Life could have a private tour of the Dunsfold collection!
Unsure of the response I created an event and low and behold we pretty much maxed out the available places in a very short space of time! Based in Surrey, the collection is quite a trek for those of us up north, so hotels and campsites were arranged. We also organised a communal meal on the Saturday evening.
Come the day, we all arrived bright and early at Dunsfold in a variety of different Land Rover vehicles. We will turn a blind eye to the fact one of our admins turned up in a Ford Fiesta! The team at Dunsfold were on hand straight away and met us with friendly greetings, coffee and most importantly bacon butties!
The next few hours were fantastic as we got to walk around the collection. The team were always happy to answer all our questions no matter how geeky they were. The collection is over 130 vehicles, however the museum can only house about a third of these at any given time. When we arrange the visit, we were asked if there were any vehicles in the collection we really wanted to see, and they would arrange for them to be on display. The collection had recently been loaded the Centaur from Bovington so the answer to that question was a bit of a no brainer!
When all the Land Rovers had been viewed and all questions answered, we thanked the team at Dunsfold and a few of us headed to a local pub for lunch. With the afternoon free, people disbanded and did there own thing before 20 plus of us met at the hotel / pub for drinks and our meal. It was a great social event as we chatted to both old and new faces, the communal meal was a brilliant evening and was enjoyed by all.
This was the first event we ever organised as Land Rover Life and as it happens was quite a good one!
