Trans-Africa Land-Rover
Please visit the main Motoring Literary & Art Festival website for more information on the event.
Hot on the heels of the hugely successful JUE 477 publication, Martin Port’s latest offering tells the story of another truly unique Land-Rover – one that helped a young Australian by the name of Philip Kohler travel from Cape Town to London and successfully complete a solo crossing of the Sahara in the early 1960s.
Kohler not only took his trusty Leica camera with him – recording hundreds of stunning images on Kodachrome film as he went – but he also kept a meticulously-curated file of letters, telegrams and receipts that helped document his remarkable journey.
His Series II Land-Rover delivered him safe and sound to London in 1962, but not before providing him with a fledgling career in the movie industry, thanks to a chance encounter with John Wayne and Hatari! director, Howard Hawks in Arusha. Kohler would go on to work as location manager on Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, Full Metal Jacket and no less than nine James Bond films.
Hear some of the amazing anecdotes and tales of derring do – as well as how he returned the Series II to the road – as Martin Port talks about why he is so passionate about this particular project.