Land Rover Discovery 3 V8 | Spotted
Miss the good old days? This'll take you back...
Even 50 years since the first Range Rover, nothing suits a big Land Rover product quite like a V8 engine. There's even one crammed into the new Defender. And a BMW-made one coming to the next-generation Range Rover. And also why the old V8 diesel was so popular wherever it was installed, combining effortless performance with fuel consumption (slightly) less ruinous than the petrol equivalent.
The Land Rover Discovery has never been available with the V8 diesel - what a machine that might have been - and while the Discovery 4's 3.0-litre V6 diesel was a fine motor, the 3 had to make do with the 2.7 version. Which did struggle somewhat with lugging around 2.5 tonnes of Disco. It had a sturdy 328lb ft to accompany around 190hp, but it's hard to imagine anyone lusting after a TDV6 in years to come, however worthy it once was. The V8, on the other hand...
The 4.4-litre Discovery was a tough sell even when petrol wasn't approaching £2 a litre. This was the mid-2000s, remember, when diesel was king - with tax and fuel prices to reflect that. The V8 was more expensive to buy and to run than the TDV6, with only a modest - if noticeable - uplift in performance. Its fate was sealed, really, before Land Rover even conceded that only around 10 per cent of sales in Europe would use the engine.
Which isn't to say it was bad. One review praised power delivery "smoother than a James Bond one-liner" as well as the V8 being "wonderfully resonant up to the 6,000rpm change-up point." With everything that made the Discovery 3 such a gamechanger for SUVs, of course. As has so often been the case, the diesel made the most sense - but the V8's charm was plain to see. Even though few sold, it's easy to imagine some contented owners rumbling around.
This one, unsurprisingly, is the only V8 Discovery 3 on PH. Looks good, doesn't it? Particularly so given a six-figure mileage, and the fact that the car made its debut almost 18 years ago. As a 55-plated Disco it will avoid the punitive tax applied to cars after March 2006, and the lighter leather brightens up what can be quite an austere cabin. The condition of the wheels, paint and leather suggests this has lived a life of road use; what a way to rack up the miles it must have been.
Now the V8 is for sale at £12,500; far from the cheapest Disco 3 out there, though it is the most affordable petrol-powered Discovery on the PH classifieds - if that helps your cause. (Of the 945 currently for sale, just 20 aren't diesel, or a little more than two per cent.) Of course a V8 Discovery is going to cost a small fortune to run; it always has and it always will. But every mile would likely be a satisfying and memorable one. Especially when you're surrounded by ditch water-dull battery-powered SUVs. Just remember to ask your passengers for petrol money.
SPECIFICATION | LAND ROVER DISCOVERY 3 V8
Engine: 4,394cc, V8
Transmission: 6-speed automatic, four-wheel drive
Power (hp): 295@ 5,500rpm
Torque (lb ft): 313@ 4,000rpm
CO2: 18ish
MPG: 354g/km
Recorded mileage: 106,000
Year registered: 2005
Price new: c. £50k
Yours for: £12,500
Saving grace is that at least its not got a swoopy coupe roofline so should have lots of height in the rear and unlike the new Lotus and most other recent SUV’s there is a decent amount of window area.
For a car that essentially had so much of the look, the 4 was magnificent in comparison to the 3 and the big diesel engine seemed so much better than the V8 in this application. I'm not sure why you would get this rather than try and find a 4 as the fuel consumption will offset any price saving, but maybe they are more reliable or something?
IN times of old, this would be a £4-5 k shed by now, with that mileage.
I see zero appeal in this car at that price:
1. 16 years old, plenty to go wrong and need fixing
2. 106k miles, see point 1.
3. Landrover, complicated mechanicals and electronics, see point 1.
4. Huge running costs, petrol and tax
Only redeeming feature over diesel, is great v8 noise.
There are hundreds of L322 range rovers for sale with similar mileage, with either 3.6 tdv8 or petrol v8 for this money if you really must have a complicated, uneconomical, unreliable, large 4x4. Likewise a quick search throws up many disco 4’s with the tdv6 and similar miles for the same of less money.
The only reason to buy a disco3 over a disco4 or L322 is if they are significantly cheaper to purchase as the l322 is the more modern design, lighter and more comfortable, and the disco 4 is more reliable, more modern and more efficient.
But, a V8 2.5 ton 17 year old Discovery, 12 and a half grand, funny how even normally largely unwanted stuff commands a high price, its not like its even that low mileage, though it does look in good order to be fair.
I bet something like this is low to mid teens MPG knocking about, even the diesel ones are pretty tragic on fuel. Even before it would be a hard sell but at the moment just not sure who would want it, unless it was a lot cheaper and they could LPG it, if thats even still a thing.
£8 to travel 15 or 16 miles in an ancient SUV ?
This car reminds me of the book Harrison Bergeron where anyone with any talent or ability was hobbled in some way to "level the playing field". In this case on of the nicest quad cam V8s of the time that would have been truly delightful in a 1600KG XJ8 or an an XK was saddled with dragging around 2.7 tons of MILF float to make it perform like a 1.6 TDi in a Golf.
FWIW - On one of the few occasions I drove one of these, I was glad I had a fuel card as once full, it indicated a range of 220 miles!!
M
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