RE: SOTW: Land Rover Discovery V8

RE: SOTW: Land Rover Discovery V8

Friday 9th March 2012

SOTW: Land Rover Discovery V8

Shed gets its Disco on. Flared jumpsuit optional



The first Discovery has come in for some stick over the years. Its diesel motor was painfully slow, while the whole model range tended not to fare particularly well in reliability or customer satisfaction surveys.


But the Disco was a hugely important car for Land Rover. It created the brand (before the Discovery Land Rover was just a model name), it helped to bridge the ever-widening gap between the workhorse Defender and the luxo-4x4 Range Rover, and it gave the Rover group something to counter the encroaching Japanese 4x4s.

Underneath, the Discovery was in fact largely based on the Range Rover; it used its big brother's ladder-frame chassis, and even the venerable Rover V8 (although Rover was initially reluctant to give the Discovery the Range Rover's fuel injection).

It all worked pretty well - getting positive reviews in the press and selling in big numbers. These days, cheap Series 1 Discoveries are generally a bit tatty, a victim of either a life as a family workhorse, or as a recreational mud-plugger. This one looks like it might have seen service as the former, especially as it's the seven-seat version. It looks pretty tidy, however, with a reasonable 93,000 miles on the clock.


At £695 we can't think of another car that might pull-off the near-Rangie kudos and big V8 combination. Except for an actual Range Rover. But what to do with it? Well, you could stick in an LPG conversion and keep it as a load-lugging family car, or you could jack the suspension, lob on some knobbly tyres and a snorkel, and go off-roading. Gripped, sorted, etc...

Advert is reproduced below

1994 Land Rover Discovery 4.0 V8i Adventurer 7 Seat 5dr Sw, £695

1994 (04 reg)4x493,000 milesManual4.0LPetrol
5 Door Estate, Petrol, auto Air conditioning,p/ a/s Passenger airbag, Roof rails Adjustable cloth seats,cd player mot august 2012 tax may 2012 ideal off roading vehicle px to clear but may px. £695





   
Author
Discussion

esvcg

Original Poster:

851 posts

184 months

Friday 9th March 2012
quotequote all
nooo, thats pushing it too far! way, way to scary for me.

325Ti

391 posts

145 months

Friday 9th March 2012
quotequote all
thats a hell of a lot of car for 695

cant believe these are so cheap now

pity the tax and a few tanks of fuel would cost more than the car itself

VolvoT5

4,155 posts

173 months

Friday 9th March 2012
quotequote all
£695?!! Would it even make it to the end of the road before breaking down?

Not my cup of tea but still better than last weeks SOTW.

Itsallicanafford

2,750 posts

158 months

Friday 9th March 2012
quotequote all
...mmh, V8 rumble...

Numeric

1,389 posts

150 months

Friday 9th March 2012
quotequote all
Oh I know I'm getting senile - I've already started thinking of possibilities for what I could use it for. I really am on the final slope and not even this 4x4 could stop me!!!

Flying Toaster

270 posts

152 months

Friday 9th March 2012
quotequote all
I saw that disco on autotrader yesterday. Strange to see it as SOTW.

quavey

177 posts

151 months

Friday 9th March 2012
quotequote all
I love these, often thought about owning one after my parents had one when I was younger. However, this particular model I think is a prefacelift with the 3.5 V8. Not the 3.9 or 4.0 that the advert proclaims! Face lift 94 onwards had a much better interior and I'm sure had improved ARB's

tr7v8

7,180 posts

227 months

Friday 9th March 2012
quotequote all
It will be rusty! Hence why I bought the equivalent Jeep GC which is completely rust free.

JamStar

48 posts

221 months

Friday 9th March 2012
quotequote all
I used to like these, until someone in my otherwise respectable estate started collecting them for parts.

They have one daily driver which seems to run and another two discos on their driveway slowly rotting away. I'm sure you could put your hand through the rust on one of them that also seems to have collapsed suspention.

I'm tempted to set them on fire so they get moved away :-)

Mike Gill

51 posts

170 months

Friday 9th March 2012
quotequote all
My dad snapped a tidy one up when they started to become very cheap, did very well fror a while shame he had a blow out on a dual carrigeway and it completely flipped the car. For 695 not sure even that would put me off.

MadDog1962

890 posts

161 months

Friday 9th March 2012
quotequote all
VolvoT5 said:
£695?!! Would it even make it to the end of the road before breaking down?

Not my cup of tea but still better than last weeks SOTW.
I agree completely. Too thirsty to be a sensible cheap runabout, and looks a bit too tatty to bother with an LPG conversion. Maybe a good short distance paddock basher and tow vehicle though.

Bitzer

4,221 posts

167 months

Friday 9th March 2012
quotequote all
325Ti said:
pity the tax and a few tanks of fuel would cost more than the car itself
£205 VED isn't bad for one of these. Add a couple of tanks of petrol, no more than £400 smile

WeirdNeville

5,932 posts

214 months

Friday 9th March 2012
quotequote all
Advert says precisely NOTHING about the vehicle!

Buyer very much beware, but that's a lot of iron for not much brass.

Krikkit

26,495 posts

180 months

Friday 9th March 2012
quotequote all
Good shed- probably not been too badly abused, doesn't have a towbar fitted, so chances are someone hasn't tried to stop the earth rotating with it.

Buy if not rotted through and enjoy until it breaks, then part it for spares.

varsas

4,000 posts

201 months

Friday 9th March 2012
quotequote all
quavey said:
I love these, often thought about owning one after my parents had one when I was younger. However, this particular model I think is a prefacelift with the 3.5 V8. Not the 3.9 or 4.0 that the advert proclaims! Face lift 94 onwards had a much better interior and I'm sure had improved ARB's
Fair lurking.

Was thinking the same, but didn't want to risk incurring beard-wrath in case I was wrong.

Been looking at these for a while, wondering if I should swap my Series III for one. It'll be OK as long as it doesn't make any nasty noises and isn't too rusty.

300bhp/ton

41,030 posts

189 months

Friday 9th March 2012
quotequote all
VolvoT5 said:
£695?!! Would it even make it to the end of the road before breaking down?
Why do you think price means it'll be unreliable? confused

miniman

24,741 posts

261 months

Friday 9th March 2012
quotequote all
shed said:
(before the Discovery Land Rover was just a model name)
How's that then? What about the Land Rover Range Rover?

300bhp/ton

41,030 posts

189 months

Friday 9th March 2012
quotequote all
quavey said:
I love these, often thought about owning one after my parents had one when I was younger. However, this particular model I think is a prefacelift with the 3.5 V8. Not the 3.9 or 4.0 that the advert proclaims! Face lift 94 onwards had a much better interior and I'm sure had improved ARB's
4.0 was Disco2 onwards. 3.9's didn't come in until the 300 Series version of the original Disco.

The 300 Series also bought a new interior (far inferior to the original IMO), different door handles, mirrors, headlights, front grill, indicators, axles and gearbox. Along with the 300 Tdi over the 200 Tdi.

300bhp/ton

41,030 posts

189 months

Friday 9th March 2012
quotequote all
Disco's are great, really will have to get myself another one!




quavey

177 posts

151 months

Friday 9th March 2012
quotequote all
varsas said:
Fair lurking.

Was thinking the same, but didn't want to risk incurring beard-wrath in case I was wrong.

Been looking at these for a while, wondering if I should swap my Series III for one. It'll be OK as long as it doesn't make any nasty noises and isn't too rusty.
Lol, well such is the way with these things - its just the car is incorrectly advertised! I would have a 3.9i though. Mum had a 3.9i ES (so top spec) full leather, 7 seater, aircon, CD it was awesome. Just pretty unreliable, ended up with a set of motorsport plug leads in electric blue has the landrover ones just didnt work properly. Sounded amazing, shame really it was sold as I was learning to drive so never got a go frown
Its one of those things, if you didnt have to bother with insurance I'd have something like that in a heartbeat along side my existing car. Its just the £500 - £800 (I suspect at least) cost of insurance which just makes it un-justifyable!

Cant believe i've found a picture of the old girl! It was quite nice back in the day!


Edited by quavey on Friday 9th March 10:50