Gesturing to the cluster of levers sprouting out of the floor, he elaborated: “There’s also a lever for high and low ratio, one for four-wheel drive high ratio, one for the overdrive, and the gear lever. The car has four gears and a non-synchromesh gearbox so you have to do lots of double declutching.
“The odometer has about 68,000-miles on it or something but whether or not that means anything, I have absolutely no idea. I don’t even know if it’s the original engine, or just a reconditioned engine that came with the car, because somewhere there’s a little plaque saying that it has been reconditioned by Land Rover at some point in the 60s.
“And in the footwell, those are Ikea’s finest doormats cut to size…”
The leather clad seats feature detailed curly contrast stitching, a relic from the previous owner, who worked with leather and pewter.
“He’d bought it off a family friend who was an anaesthetist up in Kingston, hence it’s got the British Medical Association badge on the front. I’m a Doctor myself so I quite like that bit of history.”
Aside from that, and the DVLA revealing that it had been registered in Hertfordshire, Thornton-Smith knows little about the car’s history.