IF there is one book that inspires Land Rover owners the world over to head off into the sunset and explore, then it has to be The First Overland by Tim Slessor. For those who don’t know, it tells the story of the 19,000-mile Oxford and Cambridge Far Eastern Expedition. Basically, six university graduates drove two Series I 86in station wagons from London to Singapore in 1955 – and boy-oh-boy did they have an adventure along the way. In fact, The First Overland is the book that inspired my quest to see as many countries as possible in a Land Rover.
No one really knew what happened to the poor old famous SIs after that. They kind of just disappeared off
