Melane Henderson is a professional nurse who loves old Landies. She trained at Addington Hospital in the 1990s and then immigrated to London, where she worked at St. Mary’s Hospital for six years. She then returned home to the Durban area as she missed the majestic Drakensberg and beautiful beaches. “I used to love my job, but the more time I spent with my Landies, the less I wanted to go back to work,” admits Henderson. She reminds us how she owned a Landy while in the UK, “but that’s a story for another time,” she adds.
Her husband, Andrew, works on old Landies. He owns a place dubbed ‘Series Ranch,’ which is their home. Just add to that their ‘Landy family’ and other people’s Landies in various states of repair and disrepair. “You should charge storage fees,” Henderson always insists. This is one of those moments when he pretends not to hear her. Andrew is her unofficially appointed Land Rover auto-electrician and personal rescue and recovery specialist she tells us.
“Older Land Rover models are prone to breaking down,” she remarks. “Especially Nelly, my 1977 Series 3,” she says. Henderson reminds us that Land Rovers are not a suitable vehicle for those who do not have connections to others who also own one. “I guess this is why Landy people tend to have more than one so that the working one can always tow the broken one, or hopefully, at least one of the two is working!” She humorously says.
She is the proud owner of her five ‘beautiful girls.’ “My first Landy is ‘Nelly.’ She’s a 1977 88” Series 3. Second is ‘Trixibelle,’ a 1964 109” Series 2A Station Wagon; third is ‘Purdey,’ a 1964 88” Series 2A Pickup, and fourth is ‘Clarabelle,’ a 1970 109” 3-door Carawagon. And the latest addition to my Landy family is ‘Willow the Tank,’ a 1994 ex-Military 3-door 200TDI Defender,” lists Henderson in reputable sequence. She relates the possibility of being stuck behind Willow the Tank as a fellow motorist in the Drakensberg area. This would be in a tooth-clenching attempt to overtake a truck on the road. “We’re barely faster than trucks. The Land Rover has Willow the Tank written above her rear door. You can’t miss it; the writing is massive,” informs Henderson. “I’ve Googled Willow the Tank and realised I need to work on her social media presence,” advises Henderson. It is evident that this gorgeous line-up of ‘Landy Ladies’ is what one would refer to as ‘The Kardashians’ in the 4×4 and overland world.
Nelly, the 1977 Series 3 Land Rover, is named after the song Nellie the Elephant. “Nellie the Elephant packed her trunk and said goodbye to the circus, off she went with a trumpety-trump, trump, trump, trump,” Henderson sings as she relates the humorous metaphor.
“I love singing these words as we head off on an adventure, away from the cobwebs of daily routine!” She exclaims. “‘Immature,’ some folk might mutter,” she adds. “But I think that the word ‘immature’ is what boring people use to label those who are actually having fun,” she concludes.
Henderson and her husband first saw Nelly in 2013 at a Landy festival in Eston, where she then purred past them as they thought to themselves how ‘cute’ the Land Rover looked. “I couldn’t take my eyes off her,” shares Henderson. In 2015, the opportunity arose to purchase this 1977 Series 3 Land Rover for R45,000. They thereafter drove the vehicle from the seller’s home in Pietermaritzburg, with a bin full of spares, to their lovely little piece of Landy paradise they affectionately refer to as ‘Series Ranch.’ “That day was my first experience of competing with massive trucks for life in the slow lane,” she responds. Nelly trundled bravely towards Hillcrest at 80 kph, Henderson with clenched teeth, of course, passing trucks on long uphills – however, then being passed by the same trucks on the downhills. “What the…” Henderson would yell. She relates how it sounded like the vehicle’s body panels were going to fall apart, and to top things off, the Land Rover’s sliding windows kept opening. “It was a noisy, breezy, memorable drive,” she reminds us.
Nelly the 1977 S3 is one of Henderson’s daily drives. “She likes wearing her truck cab; it’s a bit like a bikini top, for girly Landies,” she jokes. “In summer, she usually wears her full canopy as her gearbox gets so hot you cannot even drive 10 km without sweating buckets and becoming red-faced,” adds Henderson. She also relates the impossibility of eating ice cream in this particular Land Rover on a hot day. “I wish you luck; make sure you have a towel with you,” she suggests. She narrates the story of Nelly ‘going topless’ in the autumn months and how ‘she’ loves the added attention. Henderson also tells us of the annoying attention she gets stopping at traffic lights because of going without a top cab: “Thanks, but no thanks, I don’t need a license disc holder,” or “No thanks, I don’t need a door draft thingy,” she would have to reiterate. “At shopping centres, the car guards say ‘Sjoe madam everyone is looking at your car,’” she supplements.
“I wish I had known in the 1990s that a Land Rover is the ultimate man magnet; it would have saved me from meeting a few unsavoury characters,” she insists. “I’ve stopped counting the number of times I’ve come out of a shop, pushing a trolley of loo roll, baked beans, duct tape, and Q20 to find another woman’s man standing staring at Nelly with hungry eyes while the car guard attempts to take my trolley and push it towards the nearest Atos,” she retells. She then has to remind the car guard that the actual huge Green Land Rover is her vehicle and not the tiny Atos. This is when the car guard turns the trolley towards Nelly, with widened eyes, and replies, “Hau madam, this car is strong! It can go anywhere.”
Henderson brings to our attention that at the same time, another woman’s man is asking, “Is this your Land Rover and are you selling?” She candidly replied,”Yes, she’s mine, and no, sorry, she’s not for sale.” she would have to retort. That is when this ‘other woman’s man’ would wander off looking forlorn while the car guard tugged at Nelly’s rear canvas in an attempt to unroll it. She reminded him to be careful, as dearest Nelly the Landy is rather delicate at her age.
“Currently, she’s wearing her little canvas with hood sticks which are so hardcore, they’re like a roll cage. This lessens my fear of rolling Nelly on a corner,” says Henderson. “These old Landies cannot take corners fast so we usually have a taxi with its front bumper stuck to our rear as we corner the winding roads of Botha’s Hill,” she wittingly forewarns. Seeing Nelly wearing her canvas is beautiful – one tends to envy motorists looking on from the outside.
“As much as I love Nelly, I must tell you I don’t trust her. She has mood swings. Under that curvy bonnet is a brain scheming how to sit at home in the shade instead of working – especially when the weather is cold, she hates the cold,” Henderson personifies. “She’s old; give her a break,” Andrew, her husband would scold. “Well, then can I use Beasto?” She would reply. Beasto is what you call a machine; he’s Andrew’s year 2005 TD5 90, and this ‘machine’ never disappoints. Beasto is rather posh and comfortable compared to Nelly and has a pleasant odour of cherry tobacco thanks to Andrew placing some in his front tray. “Sitting in the driver’s seat is a warm, snug hug,” reminisces Henderson. “My right arm rests next to the window, which needs a helping left-handed push to get it down as it always sticks. My left arm on the centre console, thighs up against his steering wheel, it’s just so perfect for short people,” she informs us. Andrew also put a step by the driver’s side of Beasto so his wife can climb in with a touch of elegance. “I used to get out by gingerly sliding my feet towards the ground, never sure which foot to land on first as my left leg has a dodgy knee and the right leg had a broken ankle,” she jests. She is forever grateful to her loving husband for the gesture. “One must be careful when climbing into Beasto’s cab, as it’s easy to bang one’s forehead if pulling up too enthusiastically. Trust me on this; I’ve seen the bruise on many a family member’s forehead,” she laughs.
Aside from humorous distractions, Nelly has really been places. Like when the Land Rover ventured up Sani Pass into Lesotho; a memorable trip during the snow of May 2017. This Land Rover was one of a few vehicles that made it up the pass but couldn’t get up the switchbacks due to a Basotho’s fully laden vehicle which was stuck in the snow.
On another occasion, they took Nelly to Lesotho and stopped for a picnic. They then stopped at a curio shop by the Lesotho border post thereafter. This is when Andrew realised that he couldn’t find his cellphone. “We raced back to the area where we had a picnic, but no, there was no cellphone to be found. There was a small water crossing nearby too. We searched there and everywhere, but there was zilch, nada, lutho,” she disappointingly adds. As they pondered where the cellphone could be, Andrew said “Hey, wait a minute.” He then darted forward and lifted Nelly’s bonnet, peering underneath. “And lo and behold there was his cellphone snuggled into a recess on the mudguard against the firewall!” Exclaims Henderson. “You had to see it to believe it,” she reminds us. What actually happened was Andrew had his cellphone on the Land Rover’s right fender while he was happily feasting. Then, as they drove towards the border post, Nelly had ‘swallowed’ his cellphone via the large gap between the bonnet and the fender.
“If you have DSTV, you might have seen Nelly in an Mnet series called Reyka. She’s the green Land Rover driven by Iain Glen known formerly from Game of Thrones,” Henderson sparks as her face lightens up. “I’ll never forget the day he met her. As he walked past her bonnet, he patted her and said ‘nice beast,’” she says. Henderson and her husband brought it to our attention that this very same Land Rover model was also originally placed in a movie called London Recruits, due for release in 2024. “We recently attended its preview at Sun Coast Casino in Durban. She was the best-looking actress in the movie,” she affirms. “We filmed a scene in Durban, in a dodgy garage near Point Road, which involved an exchange of firearms over her bonnet. But to my disappointment, they cut that scene,” she says. “It looked hardcore. Maybe they thought it would give Landies a bad image – you know, like those mean Land Cruisers we always see in desert scenes with soldiers and AK47s,” she concludes.
Henderson reminds us that Nelly is a ‘forever’ vehicle and a beloved member of their Series Ranch ‘Landy family.’ You might actually be lucky enough to spot this very Land Rover in the Hillcrest area. They often attend Cars in The Park with Nelly, which is a vintage highlight event held in Ashburton, which they also plan to reattend in 2024. “I used to wash and polish her, especially for the show, but Andrew always says that Land Rovers mustn’t get washed,” she shockingly states. “Have you noticed how old Landies tend to shed their paint and get the best patina – it’s just not the same with any other vehicle,” she admits.
“One thing’s for sure; Landies are not known to be reliable or economical. But you can’t beat the fact that life’s lekker in a Landy!” she concludes.
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