Land Rovers have been in and around my life for a long time. My first memories of them were during a weekend job that I did as a young lad at a local scrapyard.
The owner purchased huge lots of ex-Belgian army vehicles and had a lot of those 4x2 Land Rover Series 3’s around. Most of them were cut up for scrap at the time, some were sold one.

Later on I purchased my first Land Rover, an ex-mod 90 NA Diesel hardtop, that had served in the British Army in Germany, so was LHD. It took a trailer and a round trip to Birmingham to fetch it, but the adventure had started.

No interior furnishings, a noisy old gutless 2.5NA Diesel, but what fun I had in this one ! An upgrade soon followed in the form of a well preserved 200TDI County station wagon. It needed extensive repairs on the chassis, so the body was soon off and it was repaired where necessary.

The 110 proved to be a really fun vehicle and it took us on trips around Europe and to Morocco. When Defender production has coming to an end, I had realised that the old 110 would be dependable for a lot longer, and it needed expensive repairs to keep it running. I was fortunate enough to be able to buy one of the last MY2015 Land Rover Defenders and have used that as our family caping vehicle for a lot of years.

In the meantime, together with a bunch of friends we had visited a couple of the classic British Land Rover events during the years. I have fond memories of an event at the Easton Castle estate, with hundreds of Land Rovers, all models were present. Land Rover heaven..
But it was really by attending the Dunsfold open weekends that the microbe for the old Series vehicles got hold of me. I was intrigued by the variations of vehicles on display and the engineering process that the trusty old Series had gone through over the years.

I was inspired by friends restoring some really early vehicles and sequently purchased my first Series, a 1959 Land Rover Series 2 that had been used as a tow truck for a garage. It was very original and retained a wonderful patina underneath layers of paint. A full mechanical restoration was done and it proved to be a really fun vehicle to drive ! The next purchase was a 1951 80” that had served in the Belgian police force, the Gendarmerie, which is currently nearing completion. Since Land Rovers come mostly in pairs, there’s currently a 1956 107” awaiting restoration as well.

One of my other passions is industrial heritage and historical research. I soon discovered after doing some initial research that Belgium was for the Rover company a really big market in the early 1950’s. I live close to Antwerp in the north of Belgium and the Minerva factory was only 10 minutes from my house. I started documenting the history of the Societé Nouvelle Minerva company and its production and am currently in the process of writing a book about it. SN Minerva was one of the very first CKD assembly operations for Rover, when the Belgian government placed an order for 373 Land Rover Series 1 80” vehicles in 1951. A part of this order would be assembled form CKD kits here in Mortsel and it would be the test for a later military contract for thousands of locally build Minerva 80” jeeps.
I spend countless hours in archives in Belgium and the UK to get a beter view on the reach of the Rover Company in Belgium and to tell the story of the CKD operation here.

Since I was already restoring Land Rover parts for myself and some friends I decided a couple of years ago to start my own business for refurbishment of Land Rover Series parts and ancillaries. We have been able to restore lots of parts for early Land Rovers such as carburettors, speedo’s, wiper motors and all electrical bits for clients all over the world. Each time I’m happy I was able to assist in the restoration or repair of a Land Rover project somewhere in the world, another one that’s been restored and will deliver smiles for years to come. It’s always interesting to get to know fellow enthusiasts from all over the place and share our passion for the vehicles!

Contact: belgium@series123club.co.uk