The Country 14/02/25: Professor Julian Paton talks to Jamie Mackay

The owner of the country’s oldest Land Rover says the vehicle’s political detour since leaving Dunedin will contribute to life-saving research. The journey, Drive 4 Hearts, doubled as a fundraiser for the University of Auckland's Centre for Heart Research, which Prof Paton directs. On Monday, the vehicle — just the 20th ever made — arrived on Parliament grounds, reflecting a 1948 demonstration where it scaled Parliament’s steps to prove its 4WD capability.

 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
I've been trying to track this man down all week.
He's a very busy man and the reason he's been
hard to get a hold of is because he hasn't
been in mobile reception areas, because he's been driving the
backblocks of New Zealand and the Series one land Rover
the length of the country, almost to raise money for
heart health. His name is Professor Julian Peyton. Of course,
on Monday his publicity went through the roof when David

(00:23):
Seymour decided Julian to drive your land rover, or attempt
to drive it up the steps of Parliament. What do
they say about publicity? All publicity's good publicity.

Speaker 2 (00:34):
Well, thank you Jamie very much for the opportunity to
join your show. Yes, Monday was an interesting day in
the life of my life and also the life of
the land rover. I would like to just start by
saying that, of course this land rover, it's the twentieth
land rover ever made, the twentieth production land rover. It's
the first land rover that came to New Zealand, was

(00:57):
first to registered thirty first of August nineteen forty eight,
came into Wellington and it came in as a single
vehicle as a demonstrator from the Rover Company, and one
of the demonstrations that it did was to drive up
Parliament steps. That was back in nineteen forty eight, and
the reason for that was, of course, you have to
bear in mind at that time the only four wheel

(01:19):
drive vehicles were military. This was the first Cvilian vehicle
farm vehicle that was four wheel drive, and so being
a demonstrator, what great publicisy it must have been in
the day to drive this vehicle up those steps. And
so the idea for us was, since we were coming
through Wellington, was to park it and potentially drive up

(01:43):
the steps. That was the request that I put forward
to my local MP, and that went through Parliament Security
and the Speaker made a decision that we could park
next to the steps, but not drive on the steps,
which was still, I suppose, something we really wanted to

(02:03):
do because it'd be lovely for us to have got
then photographs of it apart next to those famous steps.
In the back of twenty on the day on Monday,
we had a couple of ramps and so what we
were going to do is we were going to place
these ramps just ahead of the first step and drive
the land Rover up those ramps to get the land

(02:24):
Rover looking as if it was about to go up
the steps, and that would have made it a little
bit more realistic. So the bottom line here is that
on the Monday morning, as we're coming over on the
Picton to Wellington Ferry, we had no intention. I had
no intention of driving it up the steps.

Speaker 1 (02:41):
Well, hasn't done your fundraising calls any harm politically. People
may or may not agree with that. Look, I'm fascinated
by what you're doing, a Professor Julian Peyton, because I
grew up on a farm and I cut my teeth
learned to drive on an old Series one land Driver.
Magnificent old vehicles. But they don't go very fast.

Speaker 2 (03:01):
No, they weren't designed to go super fast. But of
course back in nineteen forty eight motor cars didn't go
very fast either. So the land rover runs it around
forty forty five miles an how it's got a sixteen
hundred cc engine in it. It was built for farmers,
so it was designed to go over fields on tracks.

(03:23):
You wouldn't want the speed. What you actually want in
off road conditions is talk. You want the ability to
be add a climb hill, so it's fitted with a
low range gearbox. You want the ability to go through water,
so the engine is hoisted quite high underneath the bonnet.
It's very well sprung, and I can assure you that

(03:45):
although we've pin over a lot of bumps, it is
actually quite a comfortable car to drive. So no speed
was definitely not the main thing around a land Rover.
I think the versatility of the vehicle. It's fitted with
a power takeoff a unit on the back so you
can drive farm implements either stationary such as a bench

(04:05):
saw or a hay turner or a baler or whatever
you know. This vehicle, land Rover was the first four
x four in the country, in the world, let's put
it that way before of course, the next one, which
was the Toyota land Cruiser, a good four by four,
but the land Rover was way ahead of its time.

(04:29):
And there's no doubt that this vehicle and we I
can testify this because I've met so many people as
we've driven up through the country who have you know,
come out of their houses, they've waved us down, they've
stopped us, they want to look at twenty and they've
told us old dad or granddad had an old land
rover on the farm and he used it for fencing,
or he used it to take the sheep into market,

(04:51):
or he used it to round up the sheep. This,
that and the other, and the bottom line here is
is that the land rover been an instrumental vehicle for
the development of agriculture in New Zealand. It really has
gone places that no other vehicle has gone before.

Speaker 1 (05:10):
Hey, just to finish up with I could check to
you all day. Unfortunately I haven't got time for that.
But you're in Napier, you're making your way to Auckland.
When do you get there? And how much money do
you hope to raise for heart health?

Speaker 2 (05:22):
Yes, we're in Napier to date. Tonight today we go
to Tapo Lake Taupo and then tomorrow Lake Taupo to
Hamilton and then on Sunday we're leaving Hamilton Landrover Dealership
at nine o'clock and we will be relaying through Hampton
Down and there will be a convoy from Hamilton on

(05:44):
Sunday morning to Hampton Down and then we relay through
Hampton Down for Auckland and hope to get to Auckland
sometime just after lunch on Sunday afternoon. If all goes well,
we're aiming to raise three hundred thousand dollars. We are
approaching fifteen percent of our way there, so there's still
quite a bit of still quite a bit to raise,

(06:06):
but I'm still optimistic we'll hit that target, given the
fact that we've yet to get to Hamilton, yet to
get to Auckland, and believe there'll be a lot of
people there that will be willing to support our cause.

Speaker 1 (06:17):
Professor Julian Peyton, lovely to chat to you, and congratulations
on buying and driving the twentieth ever made Landrover from
Otago up to Auckland. Thanks for your time.

Speaker 2 (06:29):
Thank you very much. Jamie really appreciate this opportunity.