LUCARI at Blue Tit's 40th Birthday Party

What Blue Tit's 40th Birthday Festival Actually Is

Blue Tit is a 1985 Land Rover owned by Tati, the creator of @overintherover on Instagram. She turned 40 this year, officially becoming a classic car. To celebrate, Tati put on what can only be described as one of the most genuinely joyful Land Rover events we've attended. Not a concours, not a trade show. A festival, built around fun and silliness, with live music, fête games, a dog show, a Land Rover parade and a crowd of people who all share the same slightly irrational love of old Land Rovers.

The event was held at Eastnor Castle in Herefordshire. If you've not been, it's a spectacular estate and the kind of backdrop that makes even a standard-issue Defender look like it belongs in a film.

We were proud to be there as sponsors.

The Road Trip Up — the Community Starts Before You Arrive

The day didn't really begin at Eastnor. It began on the road.

Leo, Hannah and Tom loaded up the Defender 90 soft top and Defender 110 soft top and headed north. Somewhere along the way, a convoy started forming. Other Defenders heading to the same event, spotting the vehicles, pulling alongside, giving the wave. If you own a classic Defender, you know the wave. On this particular journey it was near-constant.

We got pulled over at almost every stop. Fuel stations, a layby, a services car park. People walking over, asking about the vehicles, where we were heading, what had been done to them. A fair few joined the convoy for a stretch.

That's the thing about taking a pair of well-prepared Defenders on a long run. In our experience, you don't just drive to an event, you become part of it before you even get there. The Defender interior on both vehicles drew comments at every single stop, people notice when the trim and finish is right.

On the Stand — How the 90 and 110 Pulled People In

Our setup was simple but showed us in the best light. Two soft top Defenders, the team and an open invitation to come and have a look at all our products. That was genuinely enough.

Soft tops in good condition are increasingly rare. Seeing the 90 and 110 together stopped people mid-stride, and then they got closer and started looking properly.

What followed was conversations, all day. People at every stage of their Defender ownership. Someone who'd just bought their first 90 and hadn't touched it yet. Someone mid-retrim who wanted to talk about leather options for their Defender seats. Someone who'd been running a Series III for twenty years and had never really thought about the interior until he saw ours.

One thing that surprises customers, when they see the vehicles up close at events like this, is how much difference the interior makes to the overall feel of the vehicle. It's easy to assume a classic Defender interior upgrade is about comfort. It is partly. But it's more about coherence, about the vehicle feeling considered and finished rather than functional and forgotten.

The Community — Every Level, All Welcome

Not everyone agrees that the Defender community is as open as people say it is. We'd push back on that, and Blue Tit's 40th was the clearest possible evidence.

We spoke to people who could strip and rebuild a TD5 in their sleep and people who'd seen a Defender on Instagram six months ago and were still at the stage of working out what year to buy. Both conversations were equally good. The knowledge flowed in all directions, nobody was made to feel stupid for not knowing something and the enthusiasm was contagious in a way that doesn't really happen around most vehicles.

That mix, experts and newcomers and everyone in between, all getting excited together, asking questions, sharing recommendations, showing each other photos on phones, is what makes these events worth attending. It's also why the vehicles on the stand matter so much. A well-finished Defender gives everyone something to talk to, regardless of where they are in their journey.

LUCARI and Leads — Defender & Dogs

A huge part of the show.

The canine attendance at Eastnor was significant, and our stand became an unofficial gathering point for dog owners wanting their dogs photographed next to the Defenders. The combination of classic soft top Defenders and very good dogs is, it turns out, almost irresistible to the kind of crowd Blue Tit's 40th attracts.

We leaned into it completely. Hannah took more dog photos than Defender photos at several points. The LUCARI Iroko Rear Decks in the back of both Defenders were aesthetic and practical for all our four-legged friends.

We've put all the dog photos together on Instagram. If you were at Eastnor with your dog and someone from the LUCARI team photographed them next to the vehicles, there's a good chance they made the cut. Go and see if you can spot yours.

The Seats, Hammond and What It All Means

Back to the seats.

Having LUCARI seats on the main stage, in front of an audience of genuine Land Rover enthusiasts, being sat in by Richard Hammond, Izzy Hammond, Harriet Cowan and Tati, is not something we planned precisely. It's the kind of thing that happens when you choose to be genuinely present at an event rather than just have a banner at it.

The chairs are finished to the same standard as everything else we make. That's not a boast, it's just how we work. And it meant that when they ended up front and centre, they looked like they belonged there.

We think that matters. Sponsoring the right events, being part of the right community, having your work seen in the right context, is how a brand like LUCARI grows. Not through advertising that interrupts, but through quality that earns its place.

Come and See What We Do

If something in this post has made you think about your own Defender, we'd love to hear from you. Whether you're looking at a full Defender build, a seat retrim, individual interior components or you just want to talk through what's possible, get in touch with the team.

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Talk to us about your Defender here.