Mr. Jones is a 1995 Land Rover Defender 110, he started life as a 3,5l V8 but a couple of years ago we changed the engine for a 300tdi. We have still too decide if the engine change was the best thing to do, on the one hand we enjoy the fuel consumption and simplicity of a diesel engine but on the other we miss the throaty roar of a V8 Petrol.
It is the throaty roar of the V8 which gave Mr Jones his name, being English and all. Tania mounted flowers on his bull bar and roofrack to tone down the masculinity.
Over the years Mr Jones has gone through a number of transformations to be the vehicle he is today:
2007:
Immediately after purchasing him Stuart built a platform in the back under which some boxes could slide and on top we could store bags etc. He also installed the first dual battery system and we put two roof top tents onto the roof rack.
This was good enough to take us on our initial foray into the Central Kalahari in Botswana
2008:
During our Botswana trip we realised that packing and unpacking trommels (boxes) every time you wanted to gain access to food or cutlery was hard work and not all that sensible, so first order of business was to build a pull out draw system under the initial platform which included a built in water tank. In a sign of things to come the lid for part of the draws doubled up as our outside table.
This draw system served us very well all the way until we decided to create the camper that is today.
2010:
The rear storage area windows were replaced with solid aluminium sheets and a filling pipe for the water tanks was connected to an external filler cap. With this done Mr. Jones was free to receive his first artwork or tattoos in Malawi.
While Stuart couldn’t help himself from fiddling and changing some stuff, in general this setup served us very well until in 2015 while sitting on a beach in Mozambique we had the idea to convert Mr. Jones to a camper instead of building a great big 4×4 truck camper.
2016:
We took a short holiday in May with Mr. Jones to Cape Town for the sole purpose of having his top ripped off and it being replaced with an Alu-Cab Icarus roof. Over the next 7 months Stuart ,with creative direction and color co-ordination from Tania, spent most weekends stripping out everything behind the driver’s seat and building a camper in its place.
The flowers on the roofrack have disappeared but remain on the bulbar and are generally a conversation piece with any person of authority who may stop us on the road.
2017:
A month long trip to Mozambique confirmed that 95% of the conversion and ideas was suitable for what we wanted. All that remained was for Stuart to fiddle and continuously improve the little things. Just like building a house, the finishing touches take the longest.
Present day:
A breakdown of the changes made in 2017 plus the subsequent minor improvements we have made while on the road including our ensuite bathroom can all be found on the Mr Jones page