On Valentine’s Day 2015 a Land Rover Defender fan in New Zealand got the best gift anyone could ever ask for. Four university friends from New Zealand had listed their beaten and broken 1957 Series I Land Rover, christened ‘The Landy’, for sale on an auction site, following 15 years of ownership. The listing told the story of their many adventures and their sorrow at parting with their beloved Land Rover. While the owners thought they were closing a chapter with the sale, the team at Land Rover New Zealand read the ad and hatched a covert operation with one of the owners wives, to give ‘The Landy’ a painstaking ground-up mechanical restoration. For Valentine’s Day, the four friends were reunited with their Series I thanks to Land Rover and Y&R NZ.
