The Historical Landscape of Land Rover Expeditions
Land Rover has always had a knack for grand expeditions. Journeys like the Trans Africa, Far Eastern and South American expeditions weren’t just PR stunts; they’re part of Land Rover’s DNA, pushing their vehicles to the limits.
The Darien Gap expedition stands out ultimately as a testament to the durability and prowess of the Range Rover, navigating a notorious stretch of impassable jungle between Panama and Colombia. You could describe it as the Camel Trophy but three months long.
the brief
So it’s the year 1972, and Land Rover wants to introduce their brand new Range Rover into the North American market. Historically, Land Rover doesn’t do things halfway, so they thought, “What better way to do this than drive from the northernmost tip of North America all the way to Ushuaia, which is the southern tip of Argentina?” And to demonstrate the capabilities of our vehicles, let’s take our two ‘Land’ Range Rovers out there and drive the whole distance, and we’ll do it in about 6 months
Preparing for the Unpredictable
The two vehicles will be pretty much standard. They’ll have a sturdy new winch bumper on the front equipped with a winch, they’ll throw on some bigger tyres, and they’ll strap a couple of overgrown “MaxTrax” (lengthy aluminium bridging ladders) on the roof, and that’s it. The Range Rovers were shipped to North America with instructions to be on the southernmost tips of South America in six months. Sounds pretty straightforward, doesn’t it?
The start in Alaska went according to plan, and they travelled through North America with no problems at all, until they got to this little place between the two continents called Panama. And from Panama to Colombia, there’s a stretch of jungle, about 200 / 250 miles of impenetrable jungle. Nobody’s really been through here; perhaps a handful of vehicles have ever attempted it. There is no road, and it’s practically impassable. That’s also the beauty of Mother Nature; the longer you leave it alone, the more overgrown it becomes.
The Wild Heart of the Darien Gap
You’ve got triple canopy jungle, humidity, rain and heavy monsoons. There’s mud, there’s rivers, there’s steep inclines and slippery slopes. There are things out there trying to kill you like spiders and scorpions and snakes, and those funny-looking little alien insects that are actually real! You’ve got alligator problems, you’ve got panthers, all of that. It’s a wild place, and you need to hack your way through it all. You need to make a pathway, and you need to try and float your cars across these rivers, then try and drag them up these muddy inclines to get through this jungle.
The Army Joins the Adventure
This was going to be a heavy undertaking, and Land Rover had anticipated this, so they pulled in the help of the Royal Army. They asked the REME (Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers) branch of the army to help them out because two cars with a machete and a spade weren’t going to really cut it (pun intended).
So they got this amazing dude who was a real big adventurer and explorer (like a descendant of Livingstone) by the name of Colonel Blashford Snell. He brought along with him maybe 60 guys from the Army, and they were going to help these two Range Rovers cut their way through the jungle to Colombia.
From the start, as you can imagine, it wasn’t easy going. This place was really an impenetrable swamp of rivers and mud and just general misery. On top of that, these guys had to deal with diarrhoea, sickness, malaria, and malnutrition. They ran out of supplies. The Range Rovers kept breaking down. They had brought some spares along with them – as you do. If you’re going on an expedition, you might as well bring something along, especially in an impenetrable jungle! The problem was with the rear diffs of the Range Rovers, which kept breaking, so they kept replacing them and kept going. But they continued having the same problem
Eventually, they ran out of spares, and they were stuck in the jungle. They couldn’t move, and they had to call in help with helicopters to resupply them. While they were thinking, “What are we going to do now?”, Land Rover was thinking, “Let’s pull out the lead driver and bring him back to Solihull and let’s discuss what’s going on with these cars, face to face”. So he flew back to the UK, and the rest of the guys sat there waiting in this miserable place while Solihull tried to figure this out. Land Rover was wondering what to change on the cars. How were they going to fix all these mechanical problems so that the cars could get to the end of the jungle. This could be a PR nightmare!
Blazing a Trail
While they were doing that back at Land Rover HQ, Colonel Blashford Snell – who wasn’t one for sitting around waiting in a hot, humid, rainy jungle decided he was going to go and find a way out of this place. He took a number of his troops with him and made his way on foot to the Colombian Army – who were camped just ‘down the road’ – maybe 15 hillsides away and got an old Series 2 off them, a short one. He brought that back to camp and decided to go ahead and try and blaze a trail for the Range Rovers. They were waiting anyway, so they might as well do something. So, off he went with his Series 2, a couple dozen guys and disappeared into the jungle.
Finding the Fix in solihull
Meanwhile, back in Solihull, they were still scratching their heads: “How are we going to fix this problem?” The solution wasn’t the vehicle itself, it was the tyres. The tyres they had chosen for the expedition were extra chunky, extra grippy and they were pulling in all this mud, becoming rather oversized.
If you understand how leverage works it means the longer the lever is the more leverage you can bring. So these tyres increased the leverage on the axles, putting a lot of strain on the diffs – more than they were designed for. Merely by dragging all this mud through the jungle, the diffs would eventually fail due to the extra forces.
So they sent this guy back from Solihull into the Panamanian jungle with a new set of tyres. That was the solution. With the new (standard) tyres, they managed to get through the jungle, obviously following Mr Blashford Snell’s route with his Series 2 and the vehicles didn’t encounter any further problems after that. Of course, we will never know if they would have made it using normal-sized tyres in the first place, but judging by how the Series II was holding up, I am guessing it would have been a success.
mission accomplished
The end of the story is that the guys made it to the end of the jungle taking 100 days to cover 200 miles! So you can imagine they were fed up, they were done, they were tired, they were finished. A couple of guys took the two Range Rovers and dashed through South America as fast as they could, parked up for a photo moment right at the southern point of South America, went to the airport and flew home. They were done. The Darien Gap had kind of beaten them on a mental level.
Learning from the Journey
So where does all this fit into keeping a Land Rover stock? There may be a lot of you out there off-roading and competing in very heavy mud challenges, winching and all that, and you might laugh, and I get it. I’ve been there as well, dragging our Land Rover 90 through the Croatia Trophy.
What stands out for me is that the solution that Land Rover found for the Darien Gap wasn’t the vehicles themselves; it was something else beyond that. It was the tyres. So the design and engineering in itself were already good enough. These vehicles are so capable off the shelf – stock – they don’t need any modifications, unlike maybe a lot of other cars.
So you could argue that if you change something on it you’re just going to make it worse. And what do I mean by that? Well, if you put in a diff lock you’re going to put extra strain on the half shafts because now they both have to do a lot of hard work and they’re getting a lot of extra torque instead of just maybe spinning freely on each side releasing the torque. You also put a strain on your prop shaft, then the UJs, the transfer case and even the gearbox; you could even break the flanges.
So, if you’re putting a diff lock in there, that’s not where it ends. You have to replace the whole lot, all the way down the line, for example, putting in hardened half shafts, stronger flanges, better UJs, thicker prop shafts, all of that. So it kind of exponentially grows and there will always be a weakest link until you have balanced it all out again – but by then you’ve built yourself a new vehicle in effect.
You might be thinking, “Why doesn’t Land Rover just put in diff locks from the factory or put in bigger, stronger half shafts?”. But you’re just moving the problem down the line. That’s just my opinion. I think they’re great vehicles as they are – stock – and you will learn how to get these things through the jungle as they did in the Darien Gap.
conclusions
A fresh set of tyres changed everything, flown in by helicopter. Once equipped, the Range Rovers could finally make headway through the path paved by Blashford Snell’s efforts in the old Series II. The vehicles proved their mettle with this simple switch, completing the jungle portion albeit after 100 gruelling days. You could argue that the Series II was the real hero, but Land Rover stuck to their story, and credit to them, the Range Rovers did drive the full length of the Americas, right? At least the Series was a Land Rover product.
The Darien Gap expedition isn’t just a tale of overcoming a jungle; it’s a reminder of the robustness of Land Rover engineering and philosophy. Sometimes, simplicity outperforms excess. Explore the Land Rover story further in our book, featuring engaging crosswords, quizzes, and insights. Great as a gift for the Land Rover enthusiast and maybe it will serve as inspiration for your next adventure.