The Landrover Defender 130 below is our dream car. It's owned by an Australian and French couple who've travelled the world in it, and they have a Youtube account and Instagram with 100K followers, many of them avid Landrover fans like my husband and I. Why this 130 in particular? Well, it's got a slide on camper on the back, which is exactly the kind of thing we wanted to drive to London from Australia in. We really love Landrovers - despite what failings others may see, we see as quirks, and adventures. Plus, they've got a strong British heritage, and my husband's English, so even though he's in Australia, he was never going to choose a Toyota Landcruiser, which is also popular with the 4x4 commuter here.
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The wheelbase of a 130 is actually 127", not 130, but it was rounded up. They were a longer version of the 110 Defender chassis, and have a dual rather than single cab. Whilst there was a moment there that everyone thought that Landrover wasn't going to make new Defenders let alone the 130, that's been proved wrong as the new Defender 110 came out recently and a new 130 is meant to be coming out in 2022. I notice JEEP also has a dual cab ute new out, so looks like there's a market for it. The new 130, however, is rumoured to cost around 130k Australian - ouch! No way is that in our price range. Even a 2016 Defender will cost between 30 and 40k, and even then, you'd still have to spend a lot of money kitting out it exactly the way you want it, and you'd certainly expect wear and tear.
So, whilst we were dreaming about our dream car, it just happened to be lockdown here, and idle hands make for the devil's work, as they say. In this case, the devil's work was buying 1991 Td5 model. It cost us just over 20K, which is about the going rate. It arrived on a flatbed truck, and we were beyond thrilled - except, of course, when we started looking closely, and my husband decided that it wasn't just perfect. It started with noticing some rust in the bulkhead, and went from there. Since then, of course, we've been on a journey of sourcing parts, spending a hell of a lot of money, and me being on my own a lot whilst he works on the car. It's got a 300 TD5 diesel engine, which, thank god, didn't need much work - he's just replaced a lot of pipes, filters, the turbo and other things to make it as good as possible. I'd be more specific, but hey, I'm not a mechanic. All I know is that a lot of parts have come through the post, many from England, as parts can be expensive here. And, anything that should be done has been done - even a new clutch. We were a bit gutted we had to spend a lot of money fixing it up, but we've kept careful records and because of Jamie's labouring and our thriftiness and clever sourcing of parts, we think that the whole rebuild is only about 10K, and then we'll spend another 20 on top of that for the flatbed tray and the camper. It seems like a lot but when you see the going rate for 130's that will be as good as ours, we're still ahead by a good 20 grand. Thank god for crypto trades making this even more affordable for us!
It's bizarre looking back and seeing how much work has been done - the rear cross member, for example. The entire chassis has been cleaned, painted, rustproofed, and even repaired - look at the photo below to see an example of the work done on the rear cross member, which now looks as good as new! There are brand new shocks (super heavy duty), new windscreen, new seats (well, second hand leather Subaru Liberty seats which were cheaper than the Defender ones, and look even better), sound deadening, new head gasket - the list goes on.
We are now at the stage that we are putting it back together. After much deliberation, we went for the popular Keswick Green, which we are really happy with. There's a sneak peak of the colour below - we think it looks fantastic. There's still much to be done - the wings are doors are not in the best shape, and they are really expensive to buy. In fact, forget that, we'd paid for them if you could get them in Australia, because shipping them here is a ridiculous expense. We decided instead to repair them, and live with the fact they won't be perfect, or at least have 'character'. We can always replace them down the road - the important thing is to get the vehicle back together!
There's still a lot to do to build our dream car. We have a steel tray on the back that needs to be replaced by a lighter aluminium one, and we have to decide whether we're going to buy a slide on camper or make one, which would push our project out by about a year. Considering we can't travel a lot yet due to COVID, that might not be a bad thing.
Turns out that to get your dream car, sometimes you just have to build it from the ground up.
This is in response to an OCD Community Challenge for the Planet Auto Community, which is everything to do with cars. You can find that here, and the challenge post here.
With Love,
You can read our other Landrover posts by clicking on any of the links below. Follow us on Instagram @wildtrackdreaming
Landrover Club Meet Up Victoria
Sunday Driving in The Great Otways Park
In Which We Buy A Series 2 and a S3 Military
RedNeck in the Australian Bush: A Landover Horror Story
Buying the 130
Landrover Camper Improvements
Progress on Series 3
Series 3 Restoration Complete
Nut and Bolt Restoration Ending - Series 3
How to Trick Your Wife Into a New Landrover
Series 3 Build Progress
Starting the Rebuild
70th Anniversary at Cooma