Hammond, here's how to rebuild an old Landie

On last night's show, Richard recounted the tale of an old, tatty and worn Series One Land Rover. He drove it on the telly show 13 years ago, and was so taken by its charm, versatility and classlessness that he threw his cheque book at the owner and bought it.

The plan was to strip it down and rebuild it. Unfortunately, due to being ‘a bit busy', our Richard has rather failed to get his spanners out and offer the Series I a new lease of life.

However, Land Rover New Zealand has succeeded where Hammond failed, restoring an original Landie for four university friends in the name of love, friendship and viral marketing campaigns.

The story starts with four uni friends, who snapped up a 1957 Series I some 15 years ago, and proceed to own it, enjoy it, and drive it to places far from tarmac. Sadly, due to growing up and gaining these horrible things called ‘responsibilities', they had to sorrowfully part with it this year.

Luckily, the car wasn't bought by a scrap metal merchant, but by Land Rover New Zealand. LRNZ hatched a covert operation to give the Landie a painstaking ground-up mechanical restoration before delivering it back to its former owners on Valentine's Day.

Click play to watch the story for yourself. Now, who's cutting onions in here?