May 2010
A Passion for Land Rovers
by Cindy Bellinger
Fourteen years ago Jim Coryat was at a career crossroads, and didn’t even know it. A mechanic all his life, he was working on high-end European cars when a Mercedes customer asked if he’d restore his Land Rover. “I was kind of fascinated with the project,” Coryat recalls. And ever since, his focus has been on restoring old Land Rovers.
Judging from calls and e-mails from around the world, and being mentioned recently on the national radio program Car Talk, Coryat is the top Land Rover restorer in the country. “It took many years to get to that standing,” he says from his home in El Carmen, a tiny village near Ledoux in the Mora Valley.
Coryat was just a child growing up in Vermont when he showed a knack for all things mechanical. By the time he was 10-years-old, he had a small business fixing motorcycles in his uncle’s garage. As he got older, he leaned toward European sports cars. But frequently he was put off by the customers; they were a little too snooty for Coryat’s taste. “With Land Rovers the customer quality is different. Everyone is down to earth and has a passion for their trucks,” he says.
He and Peggy, his wife of 25 years, took a rather circuitous route coming to New Mexico. They lived in Vermont, Connecticut, Florida, Texas then back to Vermont before visiting his sister who was stationed at Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque. “We flew in, rented a car and took a six-week road trip into Idaho and Colorado. When we got into Santa Fe, we said ‘this is it.’” But after a stint there, they moved to Pecos; for six years that suited them better, but there still wasn’t enough room for all the vehicles in his front yard.
“They come from everywhere. People ship them in containers. Some come from out of the country,” Coryat says. “I find coins from all around the world in the vehicles that come to me. Many Land Rovers have traveled throughout Africa.”
Finally, 80 unimproved acres fell into the Coryats’ lap. “We lived in an RV for three-and-a-half years while building a house and my shop,” he says.
The shop is 2,500 square feet and already feels a bit cramped. He also built a test track. With 22 Land Rovers on his place now, Coryat, 50, believes he has room to do the kind of work he was meant to do. It takes about $35,000 to restore a Land Rover.
Coryat only works on older models from ’58 to ’73; he says they’re simple with interchangeable parts. Land Rovers, being English cars, stopped meeting new U.S. auto compliances so they weren’t imported. They’re now in compliance and go by the name of Range Rover. But they aren’t the same as the old ones, and from Coryat’s point of view the newer ones don’t have the camaraderie between owners.
With notable delight he explains, “You have to love Land Rovers. They don’t drive like a luxury car. It’s more like riding in a tractor.”
For more information visit www.landroverranch.com or e-mail jim@landroverranch.com.
If you know anyone who'd make a good profile for this column—including yourself—let us know at sespinoza@enchantment.coop.
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