poor restoration?

[muddyjames]

surely not tax exempt for a start now?

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Land-Rover-88-Hybrid-200-TDI-Tax-Exempt-Series-3_W0QQitemZ120533413570QQcmdZViewItemQQptZAutomobiles_UK?hash=item1c1059eec2

Best to be bought and returned back to a tax exempt leaf spring example?

[bogie]

Its difficult to say whether its a series chassis,but i doute it is??  The gear stick/box is not right unless your a bird sitting in the middle seat!!!! Personnely i wouldnt touch it!

[Saffy]

rear crossmember and front bumper fitting/rails looks series to me.

[muddyjames]

he says the chassis has been modified to fit coil springs and the engine and gear box are out of a disco. so surely the points system is well out the window. I would guess they have fitted power steering too. Only a guess though.

[climbingchris]

Mm, looks like it started life as a series truck, series bulkhead etc. But what did the poor thing do to deserve that kind of butchery?

[Little-Green-Machine]

i agree why ruin a tax exempt motor for that! buy a ninety!

[Saffy]

maybe otherwise it would have been left to rot/scrap and no longer be around at all *shrug* - if it should hold tax exempt status is another thing.

[landmannnn]

I reckon it's disco mechanicals with a few s111 / 90 bits attached.

[NiteMare]

i very much doubt that it honestly retains enough points to keep it's historic status looking at it, i'm not sure when the cutoff date came in for modifying the chassis/suspension to be able to keep it's original registration/build date...

as landrovers go, this one doesn't appeal to me, defender grille and bonnet plus alloys, it just doesn't have any identity in my eyes (a mongrel of the worst sort)

[Disco Matt]

Looking at the wheels and gear selectors I think the underpinnings came from a 200TDI Disco. Bear in mind that you can't fit those alloys to a drum braked axle too, so it probably has the Disco axles, engine and gearboxes. The chassis may be original with new spring/axle/engine/gearbox mounts but something doesn't look quite right to me around the front wheel - it looks a bit too far back? It may be due to the tyres looking a bit too small - it'd look a lot better with something like 245/75 R16s to fill the arches.

However they've done it they've had to modify the chassis, so it needs an IVA. Either it's a shortened Disco one with new body mounts and rear crossmember or it's a Series chassis with welded-on mounts to handle the new running gear. It should also have extended arches - Discos have a wider track than the Series, so the bodywork won't cover the wheels properly on this.

I probably wouldn't buy it TBH, I'd prefer a proper Series to tinker with or a rough 90 to rebuild as a challenge truck. This just looks like a huge legal pothole for the unwary to fall into.

[Amma]

Why am I thinking that it could be an early 90?

If memory serves me right (which it probably doesn't!) the early 90's had the PTO hole still and were basically a Series chassis with the relevant mounts welded inplace for boingy springs. It would be very easy to swap the bulkhead and roof from a Series III onto it for the windscreen to match. I also suspect this as it has a heated window in the rear door.

After all it would account for the axles and also the later style front end. Also the wheels don't seem to stick out as much as they would with Disco axles as I think the 90 axles are a little narrower.

 

[Disco Matt]

Not convinced - as I said, those alloys wouldn't fit if it had a drum brake rear axle (which early 90s had). The tyres look like 205/80 R16 or whatever the smaller Disco size was, which wouldn't appear to stick out as much as, say, 235/70 R16s would. They're definitely outside the bodywork though when you look at the head-on photo.