・Jacked-up Range Rover with off-road mods

・All welding completed 

・Needs gear selector, interior wiring and MOT

・Polybushed and in good running order

Not all Range Rovers are created equal. You only have to look at how the market for the first generation models has gone in recent times to see that some are more popular than others. 

A spotless early two-door is a true collector’s piece these days, but that doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy the Range Rover experience on a more sensible budget. 

This example, for instance, is an unfinished off-road project that is as far removed from the shiny showroom collectors’ pieces as you can imagine, but in many ways that gives it an appeal of its own – as well as making it more affordable.

It left the factory in 1989 as a four-door Vogue, and would have been quite a posh thing. In later years, though, it has grown a lot more rugged – a bit like the posh boy at school who rebels against his upbringing and starts wearing heavy metal T-shirts, gets a tattoo sleeve and grows his hair long.

There’s something gloriously rebellious about it. And with most Range Rovers these days being mollycoddled, it’s quite cool to come across one that wears the proudest aspect of Land Rover’s DNA on its sleeve. It wears the badge of the world’s finest off-roader, so why not flaunt it, after all?

Not a huge amount is known about the Range Rover’s past. It was bought by the vendor as a non-runner; an unfinished project upon which most of the difficult bodywork elements had already been done, but hadn’t been finished mechanically. 

It is being sold by a dealer who specialises in made-to-measure Land Rovers and his original plan was to finish it off and turn it into something pretty bold and imposing (even more so than it is now), but with several classic Land Rover projects ahead if it in the queue he has decided to offer it for sale instead. 

He is, however, a Land Rover restorer by trade and would be more than happy to use the vehicle as a blank canvas for the winning bidder and help them build an off-road spec Range Rover to their own specification if they commissioned him to. Having seen the craftsmanship of some of his previous projects, this wouldn’t be a bad idea…

The Range Rover comes with a full UK V5C in the name of the vendor. There are no other bills or receipts, and the last MOT certificate was issued in 2018, since when it has covered around 3,000 miles.

This isn’t the kind of vehicle you’re going to worry about keeping shiny, but it manages to look very, very cool in different ways. 

A two-inch lift kit and Insa Turbo full off-road tyres give it a real presence, while the matt grey paintwork is stealthy and quite menacing in its appearance. 

Significantly, it’s in very solid condition. The previous owner took care of the welding in all of the usual Range Rover grot spots, so the wheel arches on both sides, the boot floor, the sills and the front inner wings have all been repaired and to what appears to be a very well-executed standard. 

The chassis, meanwhile, is in very strong and solid condition, while the rear upper tailgate is astonishingly good and could quite easily be sold on to a restorer if you don’t mind a cosmetically challenged one in its place. 

As for the panels? They’re all there and they fit well (for a Range Rover), but there are various small dents and dings. This is an off-road vehicle after all.

Well, it’s all there! The cabin of the Range Rover is best described as rugged, with bots of trim missing, wires hanging out and a fair amount of off-road dirt inside, but the original velour seats are in surprisingly good order upfront. In the rear, there’s a seat from a Discovery Mk1, but as the two vehicles are structural twins it fits perfectly. 

Everything is there and everything seems to work other than the passenger door handle, but it’s not exactly a show car inside. But then that’s hardly the point of a truck like this, is it?

The previous owner did quite a bit to the Range Rover before he traded it in for a new toy, and he hadn’t finished it. 

What he had done was fit the new Insa Turbo tyres, the two-inch lift kit, uprated springs and poly bushes all-round, along with underbody protection, a skid plate and a sports exhaust system, which sounds absolutely fabulous. 

The 3.9-litre V8 fires up on the first twist of the key and it runs sweetly, the crackle and pop of the sports exhaust system helping to amplify its gruff and macho exterior look. 

Where it will need attention, though, is with the gear selector unit. The automatic transmission won’t always go into drive and struggles with reverse, which the vendor believes to be an internal issue with the selector mechanism as once in gear the truck is more than happy to maintain drive and move through the ratios. He hasn’t had a chance to investigate it further and is selling it as is, but will update the listing if he gets a chance to look at it before the sale concludes.

This is an off-road themed Range Rover that is almost a blank canvas in its current form. It’ll make a fine and fun off-roader and doesn’t appear to need much for an MOT test, while the welding and structural repairs carried out by the previous keeper have been done to an impressively robust standard. 

It’s a cool thing, a great project for someone and a fantastic opportunity to personalise a Range Rover to your own tastes. 

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