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Between July 1957 and September 1958, the Canadian artist Robert Bateman and his boyhood friend, Dr. Bristol Foster, undertook a 60,000-kilometre journey around the world with nothing besides a sense of curiosity and a unique Land Rover. The pair regularly submitted illustrated articles to The Toronto Telegram, whose readers called them the ‘Rover Boys.’

Christened ‘The Grizzly Torque,’ the duo’s 1957 Series I began life on 2 May 1957, when its special-order, 107-inch long wheelbase ‘Station Wagon’ chassis was completed at Land Rover’s Solihull factory. Equipped with a 2.0-litre inline four-cylinder petrol engine, it was subsequently forwarded to Pilchers of Wimbledon, who fitted its custom-outfitted aluminium bodywork, green leather upholstery, an observation hatch, two bunks, external sun visor, winch, crank windows, and Sand Beige paintwork.

After a shakedown tour of Scotland, the pair set off for Africa’s Gold Coast in July 1957, snaking their merry way across Central Africa via Ghana, Togo, Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, Nigeria, Congo, Rwanda, Burundi, Tanzania, Kenya, and Uganda. They then proceeded by boat to India, and onwards through Nepal, Myanmar, Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, and finally, Australia.

Following its return to Canada, Foster used ‘The Grizzly Torque’ for some years until he sold it to a Texas-bound graduate student; that student later sold it to a rancher in British Columbia. Despite Bateman and Foster’s best efforts to relocate ‘The Grizzly Torque,’ the car remained lost for decades until its rediscovery as a blue, derelict project in 2008 by marque specialist Alan Simpson of Roverworks B.C. Ltd.

Its identity was subsequently confirmed by Foster and Land Rover by December 2014. The consignor then purchased this famous Series I and organised a consortium of marque specialists (headed by Simpson) to complete an exactingly accurate restoration to its original 1957 specifications.

For their parts, Foster supplied a trove of period photographs for study, and Bateman recreated the hand-painted vignettes that run around the car’s bodywork representing each of the countries visited during their original journey. Two years and some $300,000 later, ‘The Grizzly Torque’ was reborn and immediately sequestered for use as the star car in Land Rover’s 70th Anniversary celebrations across Canada. More recently, it has been exhibited at a great variety of domestic concours and overlanding events.

‘The Grizzly Torque’, a 1957 Land Rover Series I Custom by Pilchers is available as part of RM Sotheby’s Monterey auction on the 18th-19th August 2023. Photos © Kevin Uy / RM Sotheby’s