Corey's Land Rovers et al

Asheville Land Rover Club!

2011-03-12T19:35:00.000-08:00

I'm happy to share with you news of a new Land Rover social and support club in the Asheville area! I'm stoked! Check them out at www.ashevillerovers.com!

New Member to the Family!

2011-03-12T19:31:00.001-08:00

Picked up this 2004 Discovery SE Trail Edition a couple of weeks ago! I've not done much to it, save for a few repairs and new tires. Still deciding on mods! I'm pleased so far.

Nice Rack!

2011-02-11T15:09:00.001-08:00

2011-02-10T20:26:00.001-08:00

Ok, so the Disco is at the shop still... getting a new flex drive plate to replace the broken it had when I bought it, and a couple of other minor things like a new exhaust and lamps. I'm now debating to get a lift while it in there or not. Meanwhile, I ran across a post on a Rover forum from a local guy selling a rover rack that came on his 64 Gypsy when he bought it. Well, long story short, I traded him a bottle of scotch for a nice little galvanized roof rack. Nice! I love the new look.

You can never have too many Land Rovers!

2011-02-06T20:32:00.001-08:00

Just picked up a new one for me... an '04 Disco Trail. Pics soon. :)

Ahhh, She's Back Home!

2011-02-03T19:26:00.001-08:00

After a WAY shorter time in the new shop, the Landy's running like a CHAMP!! Thank you SOOOOOOOO much to Tony and Jennie at Old English Cars for outstanding (and timely) work! Faster, better, and cheaper than "the other guy" here in town. Wow. She's so happy now!

On another note, as another storm is said to be approaching, my brother and I spent a hectic day and night replacing the passenger door top tonight (pics soon). Success!

New decals :)

2011-01-22T20:16:00.000-08:00

Out of one shop, into another :)

2011-01-22T19:52:00.000-08:00

It was almost exactly 4 years ago today when Jill and I went to Virginia to pick up my Landy! And about a year ago the tree fell on her (the Landy, not Jill) and I've driven her very little since. To be honest, it was psychologically tough for me to drive her after the tree incident. It took a while for me to come around, but several months ago I decided to get her back on the road more. As I stated before, we've recently been getting some work done on her... once we had the roof replaced (which came complete with an old "ohm" sticker :) ), we had the clutch replaced as it had frozen in place for the couple of wet months she sat parked. We also had the front brakes done while it was in the shop. How long did this take? Nearly two and a half months! Why? Beats me! The shop owner had some new lame excuse as to why he'd not gotten to it EVERY time I called. It got really old really fast. The best part? He raped us for over two thousand dollars for the work. Wow. Needless to say, a few weeks after we got the car back and she needed a new water pump, we took her elsewhere. Lucky for us there's more than one shop in Asheville that specializes in old Land Rovers.... what are the odds? We're also having the mechanic check the brakes and clutch work that the other guy did because we're not convinced the job was even completed to satisfaction. Here's a shot with the new roof after a little snow a couple of weeks ago.

Some maintenance underway.

2011-01-22T19:37:00.000-08:00

A few months ago I was toying with the idea of selling my beloved Landy. Since then, I decided to keep her and fix her up... I figured it would help to sell her if I changed my mind again and I would enjoy her a lot more in the meantime!

Well, as some of you know, we had a little mishap last winter. It was December '09 to be exact during one of the worst snow storms the area has seen. The top half of a big pine snapped off and plummeted 50 feet right down onto the roof of my Landy. The tree was an easy 14" in diameter but to my girl's credit, she took it like a man! I was certain that not only was the roof (which is just aluminum, by the way) beyond repair, I figured that the sides and back would be totally smushed and all the glass broken out as well. After the storm passed and I got the chainsaw out, very much to my surprise, not only where the sides and back not messed up, nor was any glass so much as cracked, the rear door still opened and closed flawlessly. The only damage was a dent in the roof itself! I was amazed. Fortunately, these babies are made to be bolted and unbolted into pieces in the field, so a replacement roof swap was easy and affordable!

It sat like that for a little while until the weather cleared enough to work on the tree issue. A little bath, and she was almost back to normal.

Wow... now that's QUITE the hiatus from blogging!

2010-10-09T20:07:00.000-07:00

Years of work and building a family has kept me away a long time from things I used to do more... namely in this case blogging and playing with my cars. I'm still sad to have sold my Ford, but I know she's getting the love and attention that I wasn't able to give her. Now, I face another challenge: that of possibly offering my Landy up for sale. Due to the aforementioned time constraints of work and a new baby, she too just doesn't see the attention that I'd like to give her. Any one interested? (And no, I've not listed her anywhere for sale, or fully decided to sell her at all for that matter, I'm just thinking aloud at this point.)

Amber took some photos...

2008-01-29T11:22:00.001-08:00

Recently, I had the esteemed privilege of photographing one of my favorite photographers. When Corey asked me to photograph him with his beloved '49 Ford Club Coupe, I was just a wee bit nervous. Photographing photographers comes with its own brand of pressure, and compounding that feeling were the challenges that come from photographing a dear friend.

I needn't have worried. Corey is just as amazing in front of the camera as he is behind it!

I'll let the images speak for him. I hope you all enjoy viewing them as much as I enjoyed taking them.

(Corey and Lincoln, the cutest dog on the planet!)

(watch for a shoot with the Landy soon!)

xo

-amber

The Blog gets a re-design

2008-01-14T18:53:00.000-08:00

Historically, this blog has been dedicated to one of my favorite cars: my 1980 Land Rover Series III 109" 5-Door Safari Wagon. Though I've been obsessed with Landys for decades, I have been just as obsessed with many other cars just as long or longer... so I decided to change this blog from one solely about my Land Rover to one where I can talk about many different types of my favorite play things - cars.

I'm not quite sure where I picked up the car bug as neither of my parents, nor their parents, had a bevy of vintage cars around. I mean, they all had cars, but they were mostly for transportation and not for fun. I should also clarify that I'm no mechanic. I mean I can tinker around the engine of most of the older cars and have fun with that, and I can follow instructions well for bigger projects like an engine rebuild, but I like to drive my cars. Sure, part of the fun is fixing them up, but sadly I have no time any more for that kind of stuff.

I'll post more stories and photos about each of my cars, but first a quick history:

My first car was a turquoise 1962 Ford Thunderbird. I loved that car! It had a 390 V-8 Interceptor motor. One of my favorite things about it was that its steering wheel slid over when not in use to let you more easily get in and out of it! Brilliant! I wish all cars had a feature like that, and I was delighted to learn that my new Lexus moves the steering wheel up when you turn the ignition off... only it does it automatically!

I drove the Thunderbird for years until an elderly lady cut me off and I t-boned her car. We were all ok, thankfully. And even though her car was totaled, my Thunderbird survived with only minor damage... the headlights didn't even break. They don't build them like they used to! Even though the car was fine, she just wasn't the same to me anymore, so I sold her.

My tastes in cars was evolving too at that time. Even though I love vintage cars still, a fascination started with four-wheel drives. I started liking old CJ Jeeps, FJ-40 Land Cruisers, early Broncos, Scouts, and especially Land Rovers. So before I was out of high school, I bought a 1978 Toyota Land Cruiser. Boy, talk about a match! She and I got along swimmingly! I drove that car for years and years! And as my needs changed, I simply added to my car "collection" instead of trading out.

I bought a Ford F-150 as my daily driver after a few years in Los Angeles. I still drive the Land Cruiser often. Then my years of searching for an old hot rod came to an end when I bought a 1949 Ford Club Coupe. Then I decided I needed a new car with a back seat that I could take clients around in if need be, so I ordered a new Saturn suv. There I was, a single guy living in LA (a city of parking nightmares) with 4 cars! Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that along the way, I also bought and sold a couple of other cars including a vintage suburban and a 1953 Ford F-100.

So, long story short (too late, I know, sorry), I love cars -- and though my "collection" in no way rivals that of Jerry Seinfeld, Jay Leno, Ralph Lauren, or others (more stories about how I know them later), and while it maybe isn't what you think of when you hear the words "car collection", I still have a fun time playin' around with my "collection" -- and I'll be posting about them here as I get the time.

2007-09-24T10:23:00.001-07:00

Today was just too gorgeous to stay inside all day! I put a new
battery in my Landy and drove it around our lake a few times... I had
not driven her in weeks, so I didn't want to over do it. Then, this
afternoon my friend Andy came over and we made a huge dent in some
yard work that needed to be done.... It felt great to be outside today!

Sent from my iPhone

2007-01-24T13:17:00.000-08:00

As many of you know, I have been a car lover and fan of early Land Rovers since my teens. In recent years, I've been on a worldwide search to find one that was both accessible and affordable.

That search finally came to an end a few days ago when I bought my first Land Rover. We traveled to Norfolk, VA to pick up my 1980 Series III 109" 5-door Safari Wagon.

I'll be posting more here about its history, condition, and my wish list, but in the meantime, here's a photo of it taken the day we arrived home in Asheville.