Motorized best friend
Local residents and business owners Melanie and Andrew purchased their Defender 90 station wagon 12 years ago when Arkonik was trading as LRUK. Fast forward to today, and Melanie still uses BERTHA as her daily driver. We recently hosted them, along with lifelong friend Vic, for a tour of our UK Headquarters.
What can I say? My Landy has been my motorized best friend for years: reliable, steadfast, fun to drive, and has taken us to places we would never have been able to reach by car. We’ve had a few run-ins with bushes and hedges, hence the occasional dent and scratch, and a robin decided the front radiator was a cozy spot to nest, snug as a bug in the garage. Melanie | Owner
Living in rural Somerset, their trusty steed has been a reliable, go-anywhere family workhorse, integrated as part of the family and much loved by their two daughters and black Labradors, Mollie and Jasper. As an outward-bound, sporty person at heart, BERTHA has been Melanie’s pride and joy for over a decade. Its eclectic duties range from towing her horsebox to transporting logs and being the ‘Mum taxi’.
The couple recounted many stories over the years, like back in 2018 when heavy snow blocked their village. While everyone else was housebound, they loaded up the Land Rover with snowshoes, spades, carpets, and a Thermos of tea, and headed off to collect their daughters from Bath train station via London Paddington. Needless to say, BERTHA performed faultlessly and transported the family without any dramas!
Another time, in 2020, when the world was flipped on its head with the pandemic and Britain was also struggling with a long drought, BERTHA was used on their smallholding to quench the thirst of their vegetation and herd of Dexter cattle. The animals got used to the station appearing through the gate and would lick the bodywork in anticipation.
Back in the days of Land Rovers UK (LRUK), the core business was predominantly to service and supply Land Rovers to the domestic market, offering upgrades and mild renovations, but nowhere to the level that we went on to achieve and are known for today globally. BERTHA is a great example of one of the hundreds of LRUK Land Rovers still being used and enjoyed from this period. The only dilemma now is whether they should do a full restoration, paying homage to its origin, or just roll with it and continue to enjoy its charm and endless capability for many more years to come.
