Photo at right: The author on a typical Nevada
desert trip, exlporing the Old Spanish Trail. Photo by Jocelyn Brabyn.
Rangerovers.net is a volunteer effort dedicated to providing Range
Rover owners and prospective purchasers throughout the world with
practical buying, ownership, maintenance and repair information on
Range Rovers in a condensed and organized format. As such,
Rangerovers.net has become a fraternity of friends who live and
understand the Range Rover lifestyle -- so often misunderstood by
owners of lesser 4x4s whether manufactured by Land Rover or others
companies. The Range Rover owner wants the best possible off road
performance combined with the best possible on road performance -- a
breadth of capability that only a Range Rover can provide. We try to
cater to these tastes and provide information requested by both "hands
on" owners who repair their own Rovers and owners who would rather have
a qualified repair facility take care of their vehicle.
The site was started in 1997 as an experiment to provide the author
with more knowledge of this thing called the Internet, to better
understand the problems blind people have with accessing it (see "About the Author" below). At the time, there were
a couple of prototype Land Rover sites but nothing that dealt with
these newfangled Range Rovers. One major Land Rover email list existed
but Range Rover owners (including the author) were soon evicted from it
due to their interest
(much ridiculed by owners of the traditional cart-sprung Land Rover
models) in such sacriligeous modernities as ride comfort, air
conditioning, on-road performance and electronic fuel
injection. Their opinions on Range Rover suspension design and off road
superiority also created severe friction with owners of the earlier
cart-sprung Land Rover models who could not believe that anything newer
could be better. Owners of the traditional models seldom
realized that the Range Rover
could run circles round them off road while getting them to the
trailhead faster and in more comfort. Range Rover owners were banished
to a new "rro" email list.
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| Examples of the Range Rovers owned by the author of Rangerovers.net. In all cases, they have "never been on road"! | ||
About the same time the Web began to emerge into daylight. A number
of Land Rover sites sprang up,
but no Range Rover sites. Rangerovers.net was born! By focusing
exclusively on Range
Rovers, Rangerovers.net seemed to fill a void. We dealt unashamedly
with the unmentionable topics of ride comfort, air
conditioning, on-road performance and electronic fuel
injection, with pages of information about
the on and off road abilities of the "new" Range Rover models, as well
as their foibles -- and how to fix them -- all based on the author's
personal experience. This was soon augmented by contributions from
numerous other enthusiasts. Rangerovers.net rapidly became
popular beyond all expectations, and was inundated with questions from
owners all over the world. To handle this flood of inquiries, the
Rangerovers.net forums were added, rapidly becoming the most
popular meeting place on the web for Range Rover enthusiasts of all
stripes. Today, the site gets about 250,000 hits a day.
My name is John
Brabyn PhD, and I am a Range Rover enthusiast, rancher and engineer
from New
Zealand living in the United States. I therefore try to reflect a
worldwide perspective on the Range Rover scene. I have owned each
successive model of Range Rover as it has come out, and been one of the
first to subject each model to real-world off road adventuring (as
opposed to the carefully controlled conditions of the manufacturer test
courses). As a result, each of my Range Rovers has had the
distinction of having (at the time of its sale) "never been on road"!!.
Picture at
left: John Brabyn PhD, Rangerovers.net webmaster.
Photo by Jocelyn Brabyn.
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| Private Event Photos
by
Marlie Eugenio (left), and Chuck
Mobraten's son Tyler (right). |
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