Journey of the Rover

besides the house and the dog when my father died last year i also inherited this 1959 landrover series ii. my dad had this car for as long as i can remember and most of that time it didn’t run and sat right where it sits now, albeit in worse apparent condition. i was gifted this car for at least two middle school birthdays but still to this day have never driven it. my dad, and i to a much lesser degree, fixed it up when i was in high school, filling dents and scratches in its aluminum body with bondo, rerunning the electrical wiring, adding modernish seatbelts, and getting it repainted. it became my dad’s summer grocery runner and the car he picked us up from the airport in the first time erica came out to missoula. a about a month before his death he tried to talk tomi, balint, and i through the process of getting it going for the summer but the hungarians only had about ten days here and it turned out my dad only had a few weeks more than that. many people in my dad’s life coveted the car and so he established a hierarchy of inheritance. it just so happened that all the listed parties were present in the moments just after his death and so, after pouring a glass of whisky in his honor, we all went out back and tried to get it started. the starter cranked hard but no amount of ether in the carburetor would get it to turn over. we continued to mess with it for the next few weeks to no avail, and then the move from denver took over my time, and then winter came. now five months later the weather is improving and this 44 year old boy’s fancy is turning back towards his classic 4x4s with new modern projection headlights sitting in my office ready to install in the 4runner and new ignition wiring in the mail for the landrover. my prediction: soft-top summer. my dad, erica, and the late great gatsby riding in the rover in 2021