More cars you didn't know existed...
Discussion
V 02 said:
I saw this today in Barcelona. It’s called a “Santana”, I have never heard of it, maybe it’s because I’m too young to know about it?
Originally they just built Land Rovers as CKD kits, then gradually increased the local content. After they were 100% Spanish built (about 1970) they started developing their own variants and modernisation of the basic Land Rover design.
This was just when LR in Britain began stagnating so there were some interesting Santanas - they made 3.3-litre six-cylinder versions of the familiar 2.25-litre Land Rover four-pots. Then they started fitting their products with parabolic springs while Brirish LRs were still crashing about on cart springs. Santanas gained things like flush front grilles, one-piece windscreens, a rear door you could fit a pallet through, turbodiesel engines and five-speed gearboxes years before the British product did. They had their own Forward Control version of the Land Rover that was quite different from (and better than) the UK version, and they did civilian versions of 101FC and 88-inch Lightweight which were military-only in the UK.
What you saw is a Santana PS-10, which was the final development of the Santana Land Rover from the early 2000s. It's still got essentially a Series III Land Rover chassis with the traditional 109-inch wheelbase. Parabolic leaf springs instead of coils like an LR Defender. Iveco 2.8-litre turbo diesel engine, Santana LT85 gearbox (as fitted to V8 Land Rovers in the UK) and part-time 4WD.
Santana was later taken over by Iveco who renamed the PS-10 the Massif, put an ugly grille on the front and started making a SWB 88-inch version. They tried selling it to military and utility buyers in Europe but didn't shift very many.
NomduJour said:
biggbn said:
Only it wasn't, was it?
When they were briefly sold here, I don’t remember the reviews being particularly positive. A contemporary late Defender will definitely be a more pleasant thing to drive. Gassing Station | General Gassing | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff