Express & Star

There are plenty of people who might consider themselves Land Rover experts - but surely none can touch the firm’s long-serving off-road guru Roger Crathorne.

Having devoted the whole of his 45-year working life to all matters Land Rover, there’s not a lot he doesn’t know about the iconic 4×4 brand.

Roger has engineered, developed, promoted, sold and driven Land Rovers since 1963 - and travelled all four corners of the globe to do so.

His nickname ‘Mr Land Rover’ has been well-earned then - and even the firm’s boss Phil Popham refers to him by that name.

Now, as part of the Gaydon-based firm’s 60th anniversary celebrations, Land Rover is publishing a book called Born in Lode Lane which is peppered with behind-the-scenes anecdotes from Roger.

The publishers would not have been short of material. In Roger’s time he has trained royalty, helped to develop the original Range Rover, set up dramatic promotional pictures in far-flung locations, and pioneered the Land Rover Experience off-road centres.

He even lent his expertise to recreate a life-size replica of the Land Rover used by the Farmer in Shaun the Sheep.

Crathorne was born within a mile of the current location of Land Rover’s Solihull factory in 1947 - the same year that Rover boss Maurice Wilks came up with his prototype ‘Rover for the land’.His father worked for Land Rover and, at the age of 16, Roger followed in his footsteps.

“I was in the fortunate position of knowing exactly what I wanted to do - and that was engineering”.

He specialised in engineering for the next 15 years before being given a more wide-ranging role promoting Land Rover around the world.

Roger cites a couple of desert trips which proved memorable for different reasons. He took part in Land Rover’s first hot climate testing expedition to central Africa and it proved an ‘eventful’ trip.

“On the way back we were trying to get from Algerian into Morocco and were threatened by border guards with guns.”

The second was more pleasurable and involved setting up the publicity shot for the Range Rover where it chases the luxury ‘Palace on Wheels’ train across the deserts of Rajasthan in India. “It took a long time to find the location and set up the shot but the result was worth it,” he said.

After returning to engineering he worked on the development of the firm’s award-winning electronic Terrain Response system, which is designed to take much of the strain out of off-road driving.

He also worked on a more scientific approach to off-road driving and is now widely regarded as one of the foremost experts in demonstrating the all-terrain capabilities of Land Rovers.

He thought this knowledge should be passed on to customers and the result was the popular chain of off-roading centres called the Land Rover Experience.

“We were attracting a lot of new customers with the new Discovery and we wanted to make sure they drove in a responsible way. I put together a programme and we formed Land Rover Experience to give those people that wanted a go at off-road driving the opportunity.”

There are now more than 40 Land Rover Experience centres in the world - including nine in the UK.

Roger says many novice off-roaders make elementary mistakes which makes life more difficult for them when the going gets tough.

“The biggest mistake people make is that they go too fast. The second thing is they never know what gear they should be in and the third is they never know which direction the steering wheels are pointing in.”

In off-roading it’s important to know which way your wheels are pointing and that’s why Roger advocated that a graphic should be displayed on the screen in the dashboard which tell you this information. It’s simple and it works.

Now, as Land Rover prepares for life under new owners. Tata Motors, Roger seems happy that the company is in good hands.

“It’s good news that we are going to a motor manufacturer. They understand motor cars and they understand the motor industry.”

For himself, he says he is happy to carry on his current role as technical communications manager.

“Technically I’ve got four years to go but if the company decided they had had enough of me I would be quite happy to go and see if I could get my golf handicap down.”

But after all these years it would surely be a massive wrench for ‘Mr Land Rover’ to call it a day.

He’s still as passionate about the brand as the day he started, and thinks he knows what has made them so enduringly popular.

“People still have this romantic thought that Land Rovers are going to take them to places that other vehicles simply cannot reach,” he reckons.

“When I was a kid I used to watch all those adventure programmes and they generally had a Land Rover in them. I always wanted to follow those great expeditions that those Oxford and Cambridge boys used to do. That was my dream - and fortunately I got to fulfil my dream.”

Born In Lode Lane, written by Gavin Green, is available to buy from April 28 by visiting www.landrovergearshop.com priced £12.50. Proceeds will go to the British Red Cross.

By Motoring Editor Pete Carroll