Rupert!

Choosing the right vehicle for the trip was relatively easy. When we lived in Botswana we owned a Landrover 110 Pickup (the name Defender hadn't been coined back then) and ever since we have loved all things Landy, so there was never any doubt we would get a Landrover. The hard bit was deciding on its configuration?

The 110 had been great. However, a few years ago we hired a Defender 130 station wagon in Namibia and drove it through the Central Kalahari in Botswana doing over 6,000 Ks in just three weeks! We were so impressed with its performance and extra space that we decided there and then that when we eventually did our 'big' trip we would use a 130.

Our needs were simple, or so we thought. We wanted a good second hand 130 Station Wagon with a 300TDi engine. However, when the time came we soon found this was easier said than done. 130's are not that common and they do not come from Landrover in a station wagon format. Those that are around tend to be standard crew cabs used by utility companies and the like.

For months we scoured the Net, bought LRO every month, all to no avail. When we did eventually come across 130 station wagons they were recent vehicles with TD5 engines and we were nervous about taking such high tech pieces of machinery into the back of beyond.

We knew about Foley Specialist Vehicles from previous trips and had been in contact with Stuart & Paul Foley some years back about the possibility of buying their purpose built 130 used in Zambia. So we decided to pay them a visit to discuss what they could do.

First thing they did was to try and persuade us to drop the station wagon idea. In their view it was an expensive option and offered less security. Eventually after quite some discussion (and number crunching) we went for a twin crew cab body shell with a custom made box on the back into which we would install a 300TDi engine and gearbox which had approx 60,000 miles on the clock.

Next issue was to decide on the colour. We knew from our time in Botswana that the African authorities don't look kindly on civilian vehicles which look military like in appearance so we avoided shades of green. Also as many African country roads have little or no lighting we thought it best to use a light colour. However we are not keen on white, our old 110 was in Ivory which we liked but we thought a change would be nice.

The answer came after seeing a photo of a vehicle built in South Africa by 'Just Done It' based in Cape Town. The vehicle looked fantastic in the Sun against a clear blue sky. We soon discovered it was an old Landrover colour called Desert Sand but unfortunately this was no longer used by Landrover. However, somehow Foleys managed to do a brilliant job of matching it.

At last we had our vehicle in place and for reasons we will explain later we named it 'Rupert'.

Our next task was to decide on what additional equipment we should fit to the Landy. From experience we already had a pretty good spec in mind, the problem was fitting this into a workable budget. Click here for a breakdown of what we eventually decided.