Shed of the week: Land Rover Discovery V8
Shed reckons he's discovered late 80s design icon - maybe he's getting a bit rusty...
Who'd be a car designer? We're not talking about the big-name guys (no women?) like your Giugiaros, Saccos or Da Silvas. We're talking about the poor underpaid drones who sit in windowless rooms trying to make some sense out of the latest unfathomable or downright unworkable management request.
Come with us now, back in time (cue wobbly screen and woo-woo music) to 1989 and the Land Rover design department, where you appear to be working. Why? Who knows. Just run with it.
1989. The Berlin Wall was down, Bush and Gorbachev met to discuss the end of the Cold War (hmm), the first internet service providers started up, and the new Discovery had just been launched. A 3-door, like you were asked. That's fine. But why in the name of all that's holy is someone now telling you to redesign it as a 5-door, with a third row of seats if you please, but still using the same length, same wheelbase chassis? How the hell are you supposed to do that?
Looking at this week's Shed, a Mk 1 five-door Discovery V8, it would seem that while you were fuming in Solihull you came up with some sort of wizard distraction scheme to fool the management into accepting your hastily cobbled-together 'solution' to this length/space conundrum. From the handles up, the Disco's front and back doors look about the same, length-wise. But then look at the difference between the length of the rear door bottoms versus the fronts. Imagine trying to get your plates of meat into the back compartment! No clowns please!
Makes you wonder how it was ever given the green light for production. You'd think somebody would have noticed and/or cared. Oh well.
This example (parked in front of a suitably period residence) is a '96 model. That means it benefited from the '94 round of Discovery updates, chief among which was the upsizing of the V8 from a 3.5 (carburetted until 1990) to a 3.9. Interestingly, there was a tax-friendly 2.0 petrol Disco for a while, until someone noticed it was probably dangerously underpowered in such a large vehicle and discontinued it. Even so, Prince Philip used a few of these 2.0s to ferry himself around Windsor Great Park, which is conveniently speed-limited to an attainable 38mph.
Using his special access-all-areas pass, Shed has copped a glimpse of this car's MOT reports. As you might imagine, much ink has been expended over the years, and a lot of it in the last two. Plenty of money was spent last October to get it through the test. Some of it went on relatively minor items like the non-working indicators and horn, which may have been connected to the "insecure nearside front wiring". Other issues were a bit more substantial.
In any list of 'most efficient breeding grounds for rust', Disco boot floors are right up there. Here's a sobering vid. Inner wings are also rust magnets, if that isn't a contradiction in terms. Happily, quite a few of this car's main danger areas appear to have been addressed in recent times. The excessively-corroded offside rear inner seat belt anchorage area was sorted last August, as were the corroded (and hanging off) exhaust, plus all of the rusty coil springs. So was the worn coupling for the rear prop universal joint; the oil leak from the engine; the leaks from the power steering box and hose; the front brake imbalance; and the hardly-working handbrake.
The owner has invested heavily in the old girl, so fair play to him for that. Even so, it looks like there will be more jobs to do ahead of this October's test. The dreaded brown stuff was noted around the offside body mounting in the last one, and it sounds from the ad like the exhaust still isn't playing ball. Slight corrosion to the brake pipes has been noted by MOT testers over the last couple of years, but who needs brakes anyway when you've got such huge rolling resistance available from those ridiculously oversized tyres?
The vendor's comment that "old Discovery 1s never wear out" might struggle to stand up in court. Like Trigger's broom, no car will wear out if you're prepared to keep on replacing the parts. Generally speaking, though, he's open and honest in his ad, although the comment 'no warning lights present on the dashboard' is a bit weird. Why would anybody in their right mind want to steal them? Well, it takes all sorts, as the man said about the naughty sweet-thieving chimpanzee.
Here's the ad.
I could have sworn these were about a grand a year or so ago with this type of miles and condition... Shame he has lost the original ES wheels.
I do love the Rover V8 though !
To be fair to them, they’re a pretty capable old workhorse if you can find one that isn’t falling to bits.
Personally I’d not touch a Disco pre the Disco 3.
Woofly noise aside, I'm struggling to see why you would a V8 in something like this. Not much faster than a diesel but silly fuel consumption.
It looks to have been replaced recently. These are specialist supply, so a quick cross reference of suppliers and fitters would lead you to the southern counties. The foliage in the background of pictures 1 and 2 can be mapped out using special software and compared to satellite images obtained from the Russians (a work colleague of Mrs Shed no doubt). This will give you an address. All this leaves you a quick break in job to the DVLA to get the records up.
Or he just phoned him.
Stuff goes wrong quite a lot - but it never leaves you stranded. When my CV joint snapped clean off, I put it in diff lock and was able to drive it home!
It's hard to explain why I like it, but don't knock it until you've tried it (at which point you may still hate it).
I suppose as a project this could be fun for someone with DIY skills, friendly garage or deep pockets.
The D1 - in this case in facelift form - is the best looking of all the Discovery family with its Conran designed interior, Maestro van rear lights and V8 engine.
Its just such a nice design - penned on a shoe string - with nice features like alpine lights, kinked roofline and narrow pillars. Clearly someone on the Project Jay team liked the Matra Rancho.
Would i have this particular car? No.
I currently have a Range Rover Classic with the same engine, and while it's very lovely I don't see why they're worth so much more than the Discovery.
I also currently own one of the very first Discoverys built, an early 1990 200Tdi 3 door with the Conran Blue interior, complete with original centre console bag in matching blue. While the 200Tdi could be termed as "quite slow", around my roads it's not an awful lot slower than the V8 in normal driving, and the bonus is my Range Rover averages about 10-11mpg locally and the Tdi 27mpg. The early cars are definitely not as rounded as the 300 series Discoverys, a good 300Tdi ES with sensible miles is an excellent purchase right now.
Don't even get me started on Td5s.
This weeks SOTW is a heap, and an even worse heap than when it was new. The engine bay is greasier than a chip pan. The addition of the oversized offroad tyres without the mandatory suspension lift... all a bit half-arsed.
My Range Rover Classic in 1991 listed at £27500 from memory, plus the auto gearbox, met paint, sunroof, tow pack etc. so usefully cheaper.
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