Sunday 6 September 2015

1958 Land Rover 3.9 V8 4x4 5speed manual Lightweight tax & MOT exempt Range 88" Coil springs, disc brakes, 4 pot callipers SU carbs PAS

Sellers Comments - Fully sorted, totally reliable and extremely fun and fast car, fully road legal, great on or off road, drive away!

The car started life as a very early series 2, the year of cross over between series 1 to series 2. At some point in its history before my ownership and before the previous owner’s time (a farmer from North Wale i bought the car from), it was converted to Range Rover permanent 4 wheel drive with Range Rover 5 speed manual box (LT77) and 3.5 litre V8 engine, coil springs and disc brakes and Range Rover axles and it even benefits from lovely Range Rover power steering! What a bonus! Later on in its long evolution it has been upgraded to a very sweet 1990 3.9 litre V8 with electronic ignition from a Range Rover auto, but having the efi removed and replaced with the Solex carburettors and manifold from the earlier V8 engine.

I didn’t like the Solex carburettors so replaced them with very nice tuned SU hif44s from an sd1 race car. The car comes wearing special bodywork mostly from a series 2 military lightweight air portable Land Rover which has been adapted. The bonnet has been lengthened very nicely to fit over the V8 engine with the Range Rover radiator in the correct position in front of the viscous fan! The bulkhead has been modified to make room for the V8 and 5 speed conversion but it has been done very nicely and is in excellent condition. The car comes with comfy and very supportive seats which are adjustable for tilt and with adjustable headrests, I don’t know what they came from originally. Fuel tank is in the rear tub as it was obviously built for off road racing, but if i was keeping the car i would move the tank back below the tub to make the space more useful and fit a couple of rear seats!

The car retains steering column ignition switch/steering lock but the ‘start’ function has been moved from the column switch to a fighter plane type start button in the middle of the dash, you still need the ignition key to turn the ignition power on though. The car always starts instantly first press of the start button! It idles happily and is very reliable but goes like stink when you gas it!

The car also has a one off made to measure wrap around nudge bar that goes all the way round from in front of the car, down the line of the front wings down to rock sliders along the bottom of the door line, this is all very strong and very secure.

Lighting is taken care of very rare beautiful vintage Cibie dipping Oscars which take proper h4 bulbs.

Everything works as it should, it goes stops and steers perfectly, it goes link stink, makes a lovely noise but quite civilised, not as Mad Max as it looks. Keeps very good temperature even in London traffic, never over heats, needle always right in the middle of the lovely Smiths guage. The car gets lots of attention on the road and people even smile and wave, not what you generally get much of driving a ‘normal’ around London!

I do have the original lightweight military doors for the car but they are pretty scruffy and i much prefer driving the car without the doors, likewise i do have a series 2 full length hard roof also in scruffy condition but perfectly usable if you want it. I have the roof and doors dismantled if you want them but i bought the car for summer fun but am selling it now as an unexpected opportunity arose to buy back my old TVR and i jumped at the opportunity, so sadly the Land Rover has to go, sadly I just can’t afford to keep both.

Spec’;

1958 tax and M.O.T. exempt Land Rover ‘Historic vehicle’ extremely cheap to insure.

3.9 (3947cc) efi V8 Range Rover engine from an auto converted to carb’s and manual with LT77 5 speed ‘long stick’ gearbox with high and low and diff lock operational. Gear change very precice and nice. Just had new quality ATF oil change.

Range Rover classic axles with 10 spline diffs and discs brakes all round, front callipers converted to new discovery mk1 4 pot callipers with metric fittings.

Polybushed suspension

Brake Lines are Goodridge clear plastic coated stainless steel braided race spec with stainless fittings.

New clutch master cylinder and slave cylinder and again Goodridge clear plastic coated stainless steel braided race spec line all the way from master cylinder to slave cylinder with stainless fittings.

Range Rover power steering

Full race roll cage bolted directly to chassis

4 point race harnesses

Beautiful leather rimmed classic 1970s Astrali sports steering wheel

New Facet Red Top race electric fuel pump

Bosch coil

New fuel lines

New NGK spark plugs

New K&N air filters

New silicon HT leads

New diff oil

New swivel grease

New genuine wipac LED side lights

New FIA isolator switch

New Bosch battery

New 10 way LED warning fuse box

New Tim tacho

New Durite oil pressure guage and sender (sender not connected yet)

New AC Cobra style stainless steel rear view mirror

Whole car completely re-wired with top quality silicone insulated wire and quality connectors

Defender wheels, good tyres

Nato / Sankey tow hooks front and rear

Probably loads more I’ve forgotton, this is a very special one-off car with the advantages of a simple rugged vintage Land Rover and advantages of power comfort and reliability of a much more modern Range Rover and the looks of the best looking Land or Range Rover ever, the military Lightweight!



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