North America Celebrates Land Rover at 75th Diamond Jubilee Event

Over a thousand Land Rover enthusiasts from all corners of North America gathered in mid-June at Greek Peak Ski Resort in Cortland, New York to celebrate Land Rover's 75th anniversary -- the largest gathering of enthusiasts on this continent in many years. With a lineup of legendary Land Rover personalities in attendance, almost every type of Land Rover from a lights-behind-the-grille Series I to the newest Defenders, and enthusiasts from over a dozen Land Rover clubs, the Diamond Jubilee event was an epic way to celebrate our beloved four-by-four marque.

The Diamond Jubilee was managed by ANARC, the Association of North American Rover Clubs. ANARC itself is the coalition of 22 Land Rover clubs, covering the continent from Ottawa Valley Land Rovers in Ontario, through to all corners of the United States from New England to the Gulf Coast to California, and even down to the Land Rover Club of Mexico. It's a rejuvenation of a prior version of ANARC, which existed in the late 1990s and held a 50th-anniversary event in 1998 at the same venue at Greek Peak. ANARC's first goal was to put on this anniversary event, but from 2024 it will co-host smaller events across the country alongside member clubs.

The event took up the entire mountain at Greek Peak. Events and gatherings were held at the base, while the ski slopes and cross-trails on the mountain became an off-road trail network, much in thanks to volunteers who went out to cut trails in the months prior to the event during several work weekends. The entire event was a tribute to the spirit of volunteerism in the Land Rover community.

Of course, being a Land Rover event, off-roading was the name of the game, and throughout the weekend everyone took part in the trails. After several dry weeks in the Northeast, the weather went full British for the event, with a mix of beautiful sunny days and wet downpours. The best costume for the day was shorts, a rain jacket, and traditional British Wellington boots. The rain added a bit of muddiness to the trails, and the theme of driving anywhere on the campus was to turn your Terrain Response to Mud and Ruts, yellow lever down and red lever back, and center diff locked. Perhaps the most spectator-friendly trail was Schitt's Creek, a creek crossing with a climb that stymied more than one vehicle, with the mud adding yet another level to the drama.

The off-roading was spotlighted in the ANARC Cup, a competition between members of various ANARC clubs in a cross-section "Decathalon of Four Wheel Drive," which combined off-road skills challenges, a scavenger hunt, and an RTV (road-taxed vehicle) course. The challenges included a hand-winching challenge and a timed tire-changing challenge, officiated by off-road training guru extraordinaire Bill Burke. The scavenger hunt criss-crossed the mountain, and each checkpoint had a Land Rover trivia question to answer for full credit. Each club was allowed to enter two two-person teams, in what was a two-day competition of the whole of the off-roader's skillset. The ANARC Cup was finally awarded on Friday evening to the winning team, Lazz McKenzie and Kraig Mackett from the New Mexico Land Rover Club.

JLR corporate sent a number of influential personalities from both North America and the United Kingdom, who all had a major hand in shaping Land Rover as it is today, as well as examples of the full 2023 model line. Nick Dimbleby, Land Rover's long-time in-house photographer, gave a presentation on his personal history photographing Land Rovers in their element, with stories of Camel Trophy 1996, shooting the orange G4 Challenge fleet from a helicopter in the salt flats of Bolivia, and dozens of other stories from his close personal history with every new Land Rover in recent times. Nick Rogers spent 37 years at JLR, and he led the engineering of the three major recent Land Rover platforms: the T5 platform under the LR3/4 and original Range Rover Sport, the D7 platform under everything from the L405 Range Rover to the new Defender, and the MLA and EMA platforms that underpin the latest generation of multi-powerplant Land Rover vehicles.

From JLR's North American history, Bob Burns and Kim McCullough talked about marketing Land Rover in this region, from Bob's time working with the late Bill Baker to create a brand for the Range Rover Classic in the United States, to Kim's history with the company in the 21st century. Daphne Greene came to talk about her history with the Camel Trophy, as part of Team USA in 1995, as well as her history with the Tread Lightly! program, of which Land Rover has been a keen supporter since Day One. All of these Honorees added immensely to the cultural value Land Rover enthusiasts got out of the event, and perhaps the greatest joy for many was the casual interactions we got to have with them -- perhaps the key to the authenticity of this marque, and the people that love it, came from the authenticity of the people who marketed it.

Photo by @afterthelandroverexperience

There was a massive cross-section of Land Rovers in attendance, and in a sign of the changing times, there were as many new Defenders in attendance as there were Series trucks -- about fifty of each. Rarities included several historic expedition vehicles, fourteen or more Series Is, several dozen NAS Defenders, and one example of every factory special edition L663 Defender. The Series Is and Defenders old and new were gathered for "family portraits" on the mountain, to celebrate these formative models.

There was also a Barbara Toy Tribute Run, a concept that started at Texas Rovers' SCARR event. To honor Barbara Toy, the early Land Rover pioneer who drove her Series I "Polyanna" around the world alone in the 1950s, a Barbara Toy run is an all-women-drivers run. Seven vehicles participated in the run, including three Series I vehicles!

Each night of the event was a celebration, with cocktail parties at the base lodge on Thursday and Saturday, and a banquet on Friday in which everything Land Rover and North American was celebrated. Held in The Lookout in the mountains at Greek Peak, and highlighted with a champagne toast to 75 years of Land Rover, kudos were given where appropriate to so many who have sculpted the North American Land Rover club scene for decades. It wrapped with an auction, where everything from Bill Burke's vacuum-sealed gloves from Camel Trophy 1991 to the banners from the event was up for grabs, with proceeds going to a number of good causes.

The entire weekend was a celebration of everything that the Land Rover has given us for all these years. The North American community is as much a family as a group of people bound by common vehicle ownership, and as someone who has been lucky to have criss-crossed the continent as much as I have with Land Rovers, it was especially poignant to have so many friends in one place who had never met each other before. Though everyone was already discussing gathering again for Land Rover's centennial in 2048, hopefully it won't be that long until we all gather again at this scale.