Feature In June 2019 GETAWAY Magazine
The Kalahari wilderness has a flow of life like nowhere else on Earth. It is a place of abundant sun, sweat and sand. It teems with tough survivors. For an authentic wilderness experience you have to go boldly forwards, through the wet and the dry. Once through the Martins Drift border, I drive the Land Rover as far inside Botswana as one can manage in an afternoon. With light fading at the end of a long first day, at about 900km from Bloemfontein, not far from a local village, I take us off the unfenced tar road to a rural village. We arrange with the locals to camp in the bush since it鈥檚 an emergency camp of sorts, and there鈥檚 nothing around here for miles. After handing over a small donation we settle in at our campsite about 500m from the road. With the melancholy ring of cow bells we drift off into a much needed sleep.
How did iconic British automakers Jaguar and Land Rover become parts of the same company? And who owns them nowadays? The short answer, at least to the second question, is that both British icons are now owned by Mumbai-based Tata Motors (NYSE:TTM), a subsidiary of India's vast Tata Group conglomerate. The longer answer is a little more complicated, but it tells us a lot about how the global auto business has changed in recent years -- and how it's likely to change still further in the near future. Image source: Getty Images. Until Tata acquired them in 2008, Jaguar and Land Rover were both part of Ford's (NYSE:F) Premier Automotive Group, or PAG. Ford had acquired Jaguar Cars in 1989, hoping to use it as the basis for an aggressive global push into luxury vehicles. Eventually, it was folded into PAG, a new Ford division that ultimately included the Aston Martin, Volvo, Land Rover, and Lincoln brands as well.
Yes, a monster, just ask Jackson. It was the evil bus dragon chasing him up the hill, a jeep trail hill no less. Did I mention that I had sprained my ankle just a few hours before? Jackson was so scared he insisted on riding on my shoulders, up hill, to the car, a half mile, in the rain, on my swollen ankle. The bus, God bless it, made it up hill with our gear breathing fire the whole way. Jim, Logan, Jackson, I, and about 70 other Dad鈥檚 and boys decided on Saturday night to return to Kansas City. The four of us went out for dinner first in Camdenton. Jim and I enjoyed a nice surf and turf special while the boys enjoyed corn dogs, fries, and endless laughter. They ran around the restaurant and charmed the snot out of people and we got caught up on Dad stuff. The fireworks planned for Saturday night had been cancelled due to rain. It rained through dinner. It rained all the way home. All in all, we had a wonderful time. The weather was crap, the vendors were less than remarkable, but my experiences with my son were priceless. In a way I am glad we had the accident on the water, it gave Jackson a real respect for the river. After our spill each time we met active water, Jackson would turn around and tell me, 鈥淒ad鈥ake your time. We are in no hurry.
The trip was short compared to many of my other fellow Volunteers who had to depart very early for the north. Staying in Mende land has its perks. Meghan, Brandon and I, PCVs of Moyamba district, made the trip together. Oh, we had a puppy jammed under the front seat and a driver who love to ramp the holes on the red dirt bush road heading from the main highway to Moyamba. I had a blast鈥?yes, seriously, a blast! Moyamba has been pegged as a 鈥渜uiet sleepy jungle town鈥? It鈥檚 beautiful to say the least. You come off the main highway to 35 kilometers of dirt bush road and flash in and out of tiny villages with thatched roofs and mud walls. The trip into the interior countryside is laden with palms and tropical foliage. Then you round a bend and three out of place cell phone company/telecommunications towers come into view connecting the area to the rest of the country. When you see the towers you know you have hit Moyamba, which is the regional capital for the chiefdom. Changing gears from having a life of PST planned to every last minute to having 鈥榖eacoup free tem鈥?has been rather daunting. I live in a duplex style house within the walls of Harford School for Girls. I share a yard, porch and lots of laughs with the small troupe of children who live next door. It鈥檚 weird for the first time, I am by myself or at least that鈥檚 what I thought.
The 2020 Land Rover Discovery Sport, the smallest and least expensive member of the Land Rover family, adopts features and technology from its revamped sibling on the fancier side of the house, the 2020 Range Rover Evoque. Highlights include a new optional powertrain that incorporates a 48-volt mild-hybrid system, new rearview camera-mirror and new forward-camera technology, a larger touchscreen with additional functionality, newly standard driver aids, and additional available luxury features. Visually, there鈥檚 not much to distinguish the 2020 Discovery Sport from its 2019 predecessor. The model is just three years old, so this is more of an update than a full-on redesign. There are new larger wheels up to 21 inches in diameter, and the design of the grille and bumpers has been tweaked. The 107.9-inch wheelbase is unchanged, and the overall length remains 181 inches, which means the Discovery Sport competes against vehicles such as the Audi Q5 and the BMW X3.
