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Words and pictures by Roger Crowhurst |
 couldn’t understand it. They‘d put a pen
down in the office overnight and it would disappear. Put some more pens on the table. lock
and bolt the door and set the alarm and, overnight, they'd disappear too. When the
contents of whole boxes of biros began to gradually disappear, together with 100mm long
coach bolts, the mystery deepened. Howwere these people getting past  the sophisticated security system and heavy duty bolts and what would
disappear next?The answer came early one morning when Barry Chantler opened his Dakar Cars workshops at Stanhill Farm, near Dartford. Kent, just a short hop from the M25 Dartford Tunnel. Trapped in one of the many mouse traps that are a necessary part of farm life, was the tiniest of field mice. In its minute jaws was a massive coach bolt that it must have manhandled from the storage box and then dropped from the shelves high above. Not only that, the little rodent had manoeuvred the heavy bolt lengthways on, as it must have done with all the other bolts and pens, |
to go
through the trap and out through the small hole in the skirting board. Field mice are now
highly revered bv the Chantler family. So are Land Rover vehicles. particularly the Range Rover – they've got around twenty-eight of them at present in various stages of undress. They buy 'em, break 'em, make 'em, repair 'em, gas 'em and sell 'em. The vehicles, that is. Barry Chantler was trained and employed by the General Electric Company (GEC) as a mechanical engineer, He was always fascinated by mechanicals and spent his spare time stripping old vehicles, rebuilding and modifying them. His hobby began to take up almost all his time as he trailered tired old vehicles from all over the country to his Kent home behind another of his projects, a totally restored Rover SD1 with all the bells and whistles. He soon realised he needed a tow vehicle with more torque for the job and bought an old Series II A short wheelbase petrol Land Rover, which he thought would be ideal for the job, from a friend. It wasn't. He'd soon changed the engine for a Ford V6 and quickly learned about the advantage of Salisbury axles after breaking a few standard items. With the increased power it wouldn‘t stop. so he fitted One Ton brakes – bigger drums. bigger wheel cylinders, remote servo.... He kept the rig for almost three years and almost solely for towing his vehicles around. He then decided that what he really needed was a strong and powerful vehicle that could both tow and also be used as a |
| Main picture: Dakar Cars owner, Barry Chantler with the vehicle that featured in the BBC tv show, Challenge Anneka. Inset: You'll never know how hard it is to get a mouse to pose for a portrait |
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136 LRM January 1999 |
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