1990 LAND ROVER RANGE ROVER

I don't really want to sell this, but it's important to pick your battles - and I'm currently at war with 7 other cars and several vintage aeroplanes.... Therefore, having emerged from dry storage for less than 300 miles in a year, this is for sale to a good home who will appreciate its uniqueness (must be plenty of you on here, this is PistonHeads after all!)

What we have here is a 1990 Range Rover Classic Vogue SE, but very modified.... up front it has a brand-new-at-fitment Jaguar XKR spec AJV8 engine - 4.2-litre, supercharged V8 with just shy of 400 bhp!

Having been rebuilt once in its early life into a JE Dakar, it was then rebuilt again and professionally converted by the JLR engineer who made the JE Engineering Defender Zulu happen - in some ways, this car was the "proof of concept" engineering prototype.

(I am led to believe that the conversation went something along the lines of : "You'll never get an AJ in a Land Rover chassis".... "Oh really? Just you watch....")

The build is now about 15 years and 35,000 miles old, having been enjoyed on the road and on greenlanes all over Europe by its creator. The chassis was new at build, with uprated bushes for nice road manners, uprated suspension and ridiculously powerful racing brakes. Seriously... I've raced single-seaters with less brake pedal feel than this....

The body is best described as cosmetically scruffy but structurally sound - those who know RR Classics will know how enthusiastically they can rot. This one has some surface rust underneath and has had the inner wings repaired in the past, but the shell is solid in the usual trouble spots and with an application of underseal it should be fine for many years to come.

Drivetrain wise, it's got an Ashcroft ATB front diff, a rebuilt and uprated 4HP24 autobox (Ashcroft, again) and rebuilt BW transfer box, and the back end has an ARB Airlocker diff to complete the show. The ECU is custom but I believe it has a copy of a standard XKR map on it, so tractability and emissions remain unaffected. The power steering looks to be a P38 item, which has been fitted to allow better clearance for the engine. It's got a few other upgrades like the bumpers, LED lights and a reversing camera, and it's not the prettiest of things, but it's unique and very, very, very quick..... my best description would be "like driving a rocket-propelled schoolbus" - something this tall and airy should not go, stop and handle this well! Obviously this is not the sort of car one buys with fuel economy in mind, but it managed over 20mpg when I've driven it which far exceeds the figure I got from a factory-standard 2006 Jeep Hemi I had a few years ago.. It's also fitted for LPG, but I have never used it so cannot make any promises as to its functionality.

The build was featured in numerous Land Rover magazine articles at the time, I have copies of these plus extensive detailed build and maintenance notes to help understand the mods. For those wondering about insurance, the previous owner was paying just over £350 a year with the specialist division of Adrian Flux, kept in a garage in a decent area. I could likely get a similar figure from Custodian if it was currently on the road instead of in storage miles from where I actually live.

The less good bits:

As you can see, it currently looks like an extra from Mad Max. The previous owner and myself both liked this, however if it is not your style then included with the car is a NOS set of front wings, good used rear wings, spare upper tailgate and glass, good rear doors, a spare grille, a better condition dashboard top, steering wheel, halfshafts and the original front bumper and side and tail lights.

The supercharger pulley coupler rattles slightly when cold, the rattle disappears when the engine warms up and the parts expand slightly. Research suggests that this is a common affliction of the AJ engine, and is not too difficult to rectify.

The radiator has a pinhole weep. I think it's a standard radiator - it's wide and chunky. Should it turn out to not be standard, it ought to be pretty easy to repair. I drove the car from Chesterfield to Liverpool and then to Wigan on a hot summer evening and lost about 200ml of water, it actually weeps more when cooling down after a run. I wouldn't sit in a July traffic jam in it, but it clearly is driveable as is.

The upper tailgate can take a few goes to get both sides to latch - but as any RR Classic owner will tell you, "they all do that sir" - and the aforementioned replacement is in much better condition.

Interior - dash is messy, lots of changes and holes etc. left from screens, computers, and the generally prototype-esque history of developing the car. Seats are comfy, sunroof - metal - works, headlining is shabby around edges.

So, how to value such an oddity? Pricing up what you would pay for a good condition donor vehicle, an engine, and all the driveline and axle goodies, would take you to £14k before you even thought of putting it all together. However, as described it could also do with a little bit of TLC - I therefore think that offers around £12,995 are not unreasonable. Sounds steep? Yes, but not when you consider that Twisted or Twenty Ten Engineering will relieve you of around £65,000 for an LS3-engined "Restomod" with 50 less horsepower than this example, and let's not get onto what the Zulu Defenders sold for....

In summary - this is a car that can be enjoyed as-is with some minor spannering, or with all the spare panels it could be the perfect basis and blank canvas for an enthusiast restomod that would likely double its value :)

The vehicle is currently SORN and on Laid Up insurance, in my storage facility IN WIGAN NOT CHESHIRE - PH will not let me change the location from my profile. It can be started and driven around the yard there. I am available most evenings and weekends for viewing by seriously interested parties for a cash sale only - no part exchanges please!

If we come to an agreeable price arrangement upon viewing, I can also trailer the vehicle to you (assuming you don't live in Outer Mongolia).