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Saturday Morning marked the end of the Sierra Estate. She had been kept at my parents house in a deteriorating state since we got the Freelander in 2006, and it was time for her to go.

J341ESL had obviously had a turbulent past, with extensive damage that was apparently undetected by the MOT testers. Perhaps she had been a minicab, or used as a van, or a skip. I guess she had seen over 250k miles. She was bought unseen, and I was going to just sell her on and forget about it, but I’m a sucker for the underdog and decided we could save her.

Intended as a canine transport that could donate parts to the Sapphire when her useful life was finished, far more expense was lavished on her to make her properly roadworthy than first envisaged. Yet she was always fragile, troublesome, recalcitrant. Perhaps that’s why I kept her for so long…

As well as transporting the dogs around, she accompanied us to Fort William in 2005 for our first ski trip. When we arrived at the Travel Inn car park one morning, we had been left a note by “Kieran” offering to buy her. All polished up under a stormy highland sky far from home, she must have looked 10 years younger. I grinned about that for a long time.

Sadly I don’t have too many pictures of her, but here are the best:

At the start of the year, she fulfulled her original, final job – most useful components were removed as spares stock for the white Sapphire.  She was lifted unceremoniously onto a Ford Cargo by Hyab, and then she was gone.