LAND ROVER OF CAMERAMAN VAUGHAN SMITH

This is not simply an armoured Land Rover. It is a time machine, a vehicle of survival, memory and truth. Built in Oxford, England, in 1994, it was purchased by video journalist Vaughan Smith, who used it while reporting on the war in Kosovo together with local producer Jeta Xharra. Their work was broadcast by BBC TV News during 1998 and 1999.

The vehicle carried hidden videotapes through checkpoints, bypassed them across rough terrain, was repeatedly dragged out of mud, endured landmines, ice and snow, and on one occasion had to be driven for several kilometres along a river, flooding the cabin.

In its later years, the Land Rover made one final long journey in the summer of 2024. With its headlights and windscreen wipers no longer working, it travelled nearly 1,800 kilometres from London to Prishtina. Battered yet resilient, the vehicle now stands as a guardian of our museum of journalism.

The marks on its body, including eleven repaired bullet holes and a sniper mark still visible on the windscreen, tell the story of the many roads it travelled: from the front lines of Drenica and Deçan, to the sites of the massacres in Prekaz, Rahovec and Reçak, and meetings held beneath the open sky.

Smith recounts more of this history in his own voice, which visitors can hear inside the vehicle. Remembering Drenica, he says: “When we arrived there, we would open the car door and immediately smell the people who had been living outside their homes for months: unwashed clothes, sweat, and that faint metallic smell of blood that people carried with them. Life was extremely hard for the people of Kosovo, and deeply affecting to witness.”