A "Jewel" of a car

The camp’s 1972 Land Rover is remarkable. We use it to service the kitchen every summer, a job that requires it to haul tons of food from town and set up picnics by the lake. The kitchen crew loves riding in it (it seats 11!), the campers love seeing it pull up with “gutter sundays” piled high on the roof rack, and Gervais loves taking it off roading around Apple Hill during free time. The Rover (a Defender 110 for anyone interested) is remarkable also because it is very hard to keep in good running condition.

Not only is it 43 years old, but many of it’s body parts are no longer available. It is made of aluminum (a very difficult metal to repair) so if a body panel is damaged it tends to stay that way. Gervais decided to fix the worst dents but no body shop would help because nobody had the skill to work aluminum… so he gave Marilyn Bailey (our nationally recognized metal jewelry designer) a call to see if she could help. Today, they met up at the camp studio (note how it is not cleaned up for the summer yet) to hammer out the dents.

First they heated the panel up with the torches (used by campers to solder silver in the summer), then they unwrapped a few anvils (important for making curves) and got to work. I took a few photos… it was a remarkable thing to see! In just 15 minutes the worst of the dents were hammered out, something that the body shops said was beyond their skill was easy for Marilyn! So Cool!!!

So the next time you see the Rover, know that it is really a “hand built” classic!