[Landie_Man]

I know from the second I turn the key and the 2.3 Diesel engine fires into life, cruising down the road, returning me just 20mpg and producing 90 decibels of groan that perhaps this isnt the best student car.

It costs £220 to tax every year, and thousands in fuel. Though I would never dream of putting student finance towards it, and use my own personal money for the vehicles upkeep.

The vehicle in question is a 1978 Land Rover Series III. She has covered nearly 200,000 miles, was once painted bright orange with tiger stripes when doing service with a safari park, she did service with the MOD, she has been rolled over and rebuilt by a previous owner but is loved to peices!

Land Rover parts are cheap as chips and dead easy to replace. I get by on my wages, and insurance is up to one thousand pounds cheaper than on a small ford fiesta.

[CurlyBen]

I love the sound of Landy diesels. Can't quite place what it is but they sound great! Always wanted one but haven't managed to yet, though I'm looking around for a 90 in need of repair. For some reason never been that keen on the Series rovers compared to the Defender though (not that I'd say no to one).
Spent a while driving a 90 on a farm, great fun in a bit of mud

[Iorek]

(Original post by Landie_Man)
I know from the second I turn the key and the 2.3 Diesel engine fires into life, cruising down the road, returning me just 20mpg and producing 90 decibels of groan that perhaps this isnt the best student car.

It costs £220 to tax every year, and thousands in fuel. Though I would never dream of putting student finance towards it, and use my own personal money for the vehicles upkeep.

The vehicle in question is a 1978 Land Rover Series III. She has covered nearly 200,000 miles, was once painted bright orange with tiger stripes when doing service with a safari park, she did service with the MOD, she has been rolled over and rebuilt by a previous owner but is loved to peices!

Land Rover parts are cheap as chips and dead easy to replace. I get by on my wages, and insurance is up to one thousand pounds cheaper than on a small ford fiesta.

Land Rover parts are cheap as chips and dead easy to replace? What planet have you been living on mate?

[Landie_Man]

(Original post by Iorek)
Land Rover parts are cheap as chips and dead easy to replace? What planet have you been living on mate?

Indicator unit with lens, bulb and wiring £5.65 new
Rocker cover seal 22p new
Half shafts £20ish
Secondhand gearbox and transferbox £300
Ignition barrel £5.00 new
Exhaust centre pipe £18 new

Sounds cheap as chips to me mate and seriously they are the most simple
Thing in the world to work on. Warm? Pull a lever and a flap in the bulkhead opens up... The Roof unbolts so you can go convertible, van, soft top
Or pickup, the petrol version can be started with a crank
Handle! There's bags of room to get under and fix it. Seriously it is so simplistic it's un real. It doesn't even have pull down sun visors. Though it has hazard warning lights and a two speed cab heater which were optional extras

[Iorek]

(Original post by Landie_Man)
Indicator unit with lens, bulb and wiring £5.65 new
Rocker cover seal 22p new
Half shafts £20ish
Secondhand gearbox and transferbox £300
Ignition barrel £5.00 new
Exhaust centre pipe £18 new

Sounds cheap as chips to me mate and seriously they are the most simple
Thing in the world to work on. Warm? Pull a lever and a flap in the bulkhead opens up... The Roof unbolts so you can go convertible, van, soft top
Or pickup, the petrol version can be started with a crank
Handle! There's bags of room to get under and fix it. Seriously it is so simplistic it's un real. It doesn't even have pull down sun visors. Though it has hazard warning lights and a two speed cab heater which were optional extras

That's definitely not the case on the Freelander and Discovery.

[Landie_Man]

Yeah but we can draw a vail over the freelander (that never happened wink wink) and the disco? Meh bland IMO. Earlier ones have easy TDi engines. Mines a 2 and. Quarter rover diesel simples!

[Nuffles]

I drove a 1990 Defender 110 for a year having just passed my test and I loved it to bits. It had a 2.5TD Iveco lump transplanted in in '92 I think, which never let me down. It could seat 12 people (legally) and about 15 if you squished people in a bit. Full length roof rack meant group camping holidays were possible with just one car Totally unstoppable in snow and mud and just felt like a really safe car to be in - really sure footed. The original clutch went at 170k and having just replaced it I decided to sell up for an even cheaper car. I now drive a '68 Morris Minor which is even less for parts and £600/year fully comp for insurance. Road tax is free too It gets more looks than the Land Rover did and I have less people telling me off for destroying the environment.

One particularly good memory was driving up the M5 to Bristol and I'd recently fitted a table in the boot which you could get 6 people around. My friends were playing cards and drinking wine out of glasses as we bombed along the motorway at 60mph, very good times

[Iorek]

(Original post by Nuffles)
I drove a 1990 Defender 110 for a year having just passed my test and I loved it to bits. It had a 2.5TD Iveco lump transplanted in in '92 I think, which never let me down. It could seat 12 people (legally) and about 15 if you squished people in a bit. Full length roof rack meant group camping holidays were possible with just one car Totally unstoppable in snow and mud and just felt like a really safe car to be in - really sure footed. The original clutch went at 170k and having just replaced it I decided to sell up for an even cheaper car. I now drive a '68 Morris Minor which is even less for parts and £600/year fully comp for insurance. Road tax is free too It gets more looks than the Land Rover did and I have less people telling me off for destroying the environment.

One particularly good memory was driving up the M5 to Bristol and I'd recently fitted a table in the boot which you could get 6 people around. My friends were playing cards and drinking wine out of glasses as we bombed along the motorway at 60mph, very good times

i drove a Morris Minor as well when I was 17 It was from 1950 and a convertible. I loved it because it was my freedom to go places and I used to love driving it with the hood down. Only problem with it was it could never keep up with modern day traffic. But tropical floods posed a no problem for it No electronics to worry about Which happened quite often then as I was living in Malaysia.

Drove it for 10 months and then I left to go to university in USA, my parents sold it while I was studying in USA........ now it is in the hands of a collector who had done it up and only driven for concourse shows.

[Landie_Man]

[Sync]

Very nice - and in the right colour too (all Land Rovers >15 years old should be painted in green). Love the Series vehicles - possibly the only car which manages to be 'fun' whilst struggling to reach 50 mph! Actually, on this forum, it's not that far from the 'norm' at all - quite a few of us had old Land Rovers as our first cars. I guess we're just suckers for punishment. This was mine:

[Nuffles]

This is what I had for my first year of driving:




I had this 1989 Range Rover Classic Vogue for a year before that, but it was a field car really as I obviously hadn't passed my test at that point:



Damn I miss that Range Rover so comfy and nice to drive. Absolutely solid underneath too - not even any rot in the tailgates.

[gbduo]

I started off rebuilding land rover Series II and Series III when I was around 12/13, unfortunately that gave me the bug and I became an engineer.

I blame Land Rover entirely for this unfortunate series of events!