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Principles: The Classic Defender for Overlanding Travel · The Overland Journal Podcast

0:04
Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to the Overland Journal podcast. I'm your host,
0:08
Speaker 1: Scott Brady, and I'm joined by my co host Matt Scott,
0:13
Speaker 1: Steve Edwards, and Graham Bell as we discuss preparing the
0:17
Speaker 1: Classic Defender for overlanding around the globe. This content is
0:23
Speaker 1: brought to you by Overland Journal, our premium quality print publication.
0:28
Speaker 1: The magazine was founded in two thousand and six with
0:31
Speaker 1: the goal of providing independent equipment and vehicle reviews, along
0:36
Speaker 1: with the most stunning adventures and photography. We care deeply
0:41
Speaker 1: about the countries and cultures we visit and share our
0:44
Speaker 1: experiences freely with our readers. We also have zero averatorial
0:50
Speaker 1: policy and do not accept any advertiser compensation.
0:53
Speaker 2: For our reviews.
0:55
Speaker 1: By subscribing to Overland Journal, you're helping to support our
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Speaker 1: employee owned, owned, and veteran owned publication. Your support also
1:04
Speaker 1: provides resources and funding for content like you are watching
1:08
Speaker 1: or listening to right now. You can subscribe directly on
1:13
Speaker 1: our website at Overland Journal dot com. Well, welcome to
1:19
Speaker 1: the podcast, guys. We are going to talk today about
1:23
Speaker 1: Classic Defenders, also known as mental illness.
1:27
Speaker 2: So, yeah, why did your dad not love you? No?
1:32
Speaker 2: I mean Obviously Defenders are super cool, super iconic. If
1:35
Speaker 2: you're watching on YouTube, I guess you really can't see it,
1:38
Speaker 2: but there's one sitting right there.
1:39
Speaker 3: Yep.
1:40
Speaker 2: This guy's driven around the world in one geez. Where
1:42
Speaker 2: do we start with them?
1:43
Speaker 1: Well, let's first kind of introduce I guess the people
1:46
Speaker 1: on the podcast and their relationship to Classic Defenders, which
1:51
Speaker 1: all of us have had some variant, including your series, Rover.
1:55
Speaker 1: I guess we can. We can start with Graham, So
1:59
Speaker 1: talk to me about your history with Classic Defenders. Obviously
2:03
Speaker 1: you have your one thirty that's gone through a bunch
2:05
Speaker 1: of different iterations, but let's talk about when you first
2:08
Speaker 1: started traveling in Defenders. How many different Defenders have you had,
2:12
Speaker 1: what were they, and kind of what your current model is.
2:15
Speaker 3: I was looking for a toy to Highlex and I
2:19
Speaker 3: couldn't afford one. This is back in the nineties, and
2:22
Speaker 3: I found a Next Military series three nice for half
2:26
Speaker 3: the price of a Highlex, and I thought, oh, I
2:30
Speaker 3: like these things. It looks cool. Yeah.
2:31
Speaker 2: I have heard that story, that same thing with Lander
2:34
Speaker 2: River people so many times. It's the same thing for me,
2:36
Speaker 2: Like when I got my first Landover Discovery, I wanted
2:38
Speaker 2: a jeep wrangler, a YJ like the crappiest one that
2:41
Speaker 2: you could find. Couldn't do that, So got a land river.
2:45
Speaker 3: Highlex had actually rescued us from a river. I had
2:48
Speaker 3: this South African made is full of nomad. I wrote
2:51
Speaker 3: an article about it recently. The crappest fully or four
2:54
Speaker 3: wheel drive or road vehicle, whatever you want to call it,
2:57
Speaker 3: Sure I ever made. I got stuck in the river
3:00
Speaker 3: and as Highlucks came along and saved us, and I'm like,
3:02
Speaker 3: I gotta give me one of those. And then I couldn't.
3:05
Speaker 3: I couldn't afford it, you know. But in South Africa
3:08
Speaker 3: back in those days, the military used land rivers, so
3:11
Speaker 3: there was lots of old land rivers Sure cheapest chips.
3:14
Speaker 3: So I bought the series and broke the gearbox within
3:18
Speaker 3: the first day. It was a lesson. It was like
3:21
Speaker 3: a sign of things to come. And then from there,
3:23
Speaker 3: you know, you get bitten by the button. You just
3:25
Speaker 3: fall in love with them.
3:26
Speaker 2: They just like there's a great community of people around
3:29
Speaker 2: land rovers. So I think it's you know, the vehicles
3:32
Speaker 2: kind of make you angry, but people make you happy.
3:35
Speaker 1: Yes, And also I actually think it's kind of like
3:37
Speaker 1: I've never I've never really done drugs, but I can
3:41
Speaker 1: kind of imagine like it's like in a bit of
3:42
Speaker 1: an addiction, because when a land Rover is working properly,
3:47
Speaker 1: it's like nothing else, Like they really are. I remember,
3:50
Speaker 1: like the range Rover Classic that I am, when that
3:53
Speaker 1: car was, when everything was working, it was magic. But
3:57
Speaker 1: then they like that doesn't always happen. But then you're
4:00
Speaker 1: always like clawing back to that moment of time with you.
4:03
Speaker 2: That's what's called an abusive relationship. I believe that is.
4:07
Speaker 2: I believe that is a common thing.
4:09
Speaker 1: And I kept going back, like land Rover after land
4:12
Speaker 1: Rover after land Rover, I kept going back. All right,
4:15
Speaker 1: so you so your first your first land Rover was
4:19
Speaker 1: a series ex military Yeah, pick up.
4:21
Speaker 3: Then I got my hands on a V eight one ten,
4:25
Speaker 3: which is basically the first Defender, and that was amazing.
4:30
Speaker 1: That was carbureting.
4:31
Speaker 2: Yeah, three five I heard those were actually I think amazing.
4:36
Speaker 1: I heard they were pretty good.
4:38
Speaker 3: But your whole travel budget was gone just on fuel. Sure,
4:41
Speaker 3: you know, you're like, is it really that possible to
4:44
Speaker 3: drink so much? And I was broke twenty or whatever.
4:46
Speaker 3: You're all, yeah, you know, I get to where I'm going,
4:49
Speaker 3: I'm like, I'm not being able to get back.
4:52
Speaker 1: I can't even eat.
4:54
Speaker 3: Luck before I put that, and then yeah, and then
4:58
Speaker 3: from there then I got an the I think a
5:00
Speaker 3: ranger of a Classic, which was the worst worst idea ever.
5:04
Speaker 1: And then you came back for more on a range
5:05
Speaker 1: of a Classic a few years ago.
5:07
Speaker 3: Right right. Luckily I didn't invest in that, just drove
5:10
Speaker 3: it around anyways. And then we were we were looking
5:13
Speaker 3: at driving up to Dorusalam from Cape Town, and I
5:17
Speaker 3: had a I bought an x by a truck R six.
5:21
Speaker 3: It was a Series three, the land Rover station wagon
5:24
Speaker 3: with the flat front six had a straight six in
5:27
Speaker 3: it might have been swapped out for a four point
5:30
Speaker 3: one Cheve engine and drove that around South Africa. Didn't
5:34
Speaker 3: let me down, but I wasn't quite convinced that there
5:37
Speaker 3: was the kind of vehicle that I should try and
5:39
Speaker 3: go up to dor with with the kids. So we
5:42
Speaker 3: started shopping around. Then I got the TV five to
5:44
Speaker 3: one thirty and that was just perfectly just. And again
5:46
Speaker 3: I looked at all the dim vehicles avail. I looked
5:48
Speaker 3: at thenis and patrols, the land cruisers, all of that
5:51
Speaker 3: double cab land cruiser would have cost me double what
5:54
Speaker 3: the one thirty. Yeah, it's flipped now that the one
5:57
Speaker 3: thirty is now with double blank cruise almost but yeah,
6:00
Speaker 3: that's that's where it was started with that. With that
6:03
Speaker 3: and that she's been now our main vehicle for travel
6:06
Speaker 3: since two thousand and nine.
6:07
Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, that's amazed, coming up on fifteen years. Yeah,
6:11
Speaker 1: that's amazing, very cool. All right, Steve, So tell us
6:16
Speaker 1: about your affliction, Like this is it feels like an
6:19
Speaker 1: a meeting now, yeah, kind of. Yeah, in the room.
6:21
Speaker 4: The through thing here with myself and Graham is our
6:25
Speaker 4: land River Odyssey also started in Africa, So my wife
6:29
Speaker 4: Julia and I are living in Botswana. We initially we
6:32
Speaker 4: moved to Harone. We bought a Mitsubishi Pajero and.
6:37
Speaker 2: Super underrated by the way, it was a.
6:38
Speaker 4: Great vehicle until I blew apart some head gasket in
6:43
Speaker 4: the middle of nowhere and call it in the Kalahari desert.
6:45
Speaker 4: And it's probably a story for another podcast, but we
6:48
Speaker 4: were on the lookout for another sort of adventure vehicle
6:51
Speaker 4: and we also were eyeballing a land cruiser. It was
6:56
Speaker 4: actually it was a I think it was a mid
6:57
Speaker 4: eighties like seventy series. It had a pop time, had
7:00
Speaker 4: sort of all the stuff we wanted, and we were
7:03
Speaker 4: pretty close to purchasing that vehicle, but we were kind
7:07
Speaker 4: of second in line on the sort of purchase process.
7:10
Speaker 4: The person who was ahead of us in line actually
7:12
Speaker 4: bought the bought the vehicle. I mentioned this because that
7:15
Speaker 4: truck is actually in the land Cruiser Museum now in
7:20
Speaker 4: the Heritage Museum, and it's all Lake City, So a
7:23
Speaker 4: museum undercut us and our purchase of a land Cruiser.
7:26
Speaker 4: So we were kind of poking around again for another
7:30
Speaker 4: adventure vehicle. And living in Southern Africa and Botswana, you know,
7:34
Speaker 4: the land rivers are everywhere, right, and they just look amazing.
7:38
Speaker 4: They just the zoot adventure right. And I always because
7:43
Speaker 4: always kind of on the fence of them because the
7:45
Speaker 4: only thing I knew about them is well, maybe they're unreliable,
7:48
Speaker 4: or they're uncomfortable, or they're you know, but they look amazing, right.
7:51
Speaker 4: I was poking around one of the Overlanding Africa Facebook
7:54
Speaker 4: groups one day and I saw this one ten van
7:58
Speaker 4: two door at the roof rack.
8:00
Speaker 2: And the tents of the two door one tens Yeah, totally.
8:03
Speaker 4: Bridge, I had like everything we really wanted, and I
8:06
Speaker 4: was like, oh, that's really cool. So I kind of
8:07
Speaker 4: made a note and ten minutes later my went Julie.
8:10
Speaker 4: She's at work. She texts me. She says, hey, did
8:12
Speaker 4: you see that land rover on the Facebook group? I said, yes,
8:16
Speaker 4: I did see that land River? She said, what do
8:18
Speaker 4: you think about that? So I don't know, I'm going
8:21
Speaker 4: to message the owner. So I did and it turned
8:23
Speaker 4: out to be an American couple who was traveling through
8:26
Speaker 4: Africa and they had purchased the vehicle from a British
8:29
Speaker 4: couple who had driven it all the way from the
8:31
Speaker 4: UK to Cape Town, so it already kind of done
8:34
Speaker 4: like a lap and a half of the continent. So
8:36
Speaker 4: I thought, well, that's at least a little bit of
8:38
Speaker 4: a good sign.
8:39
Speaker 2: Right that to break down, Yeah, right, as opposed to
8:46
Speaker 2: they don't really break down.
8:47
Speaker 1: That much, right they really don't. They really know.
8:49
Speaker 4: And I think there's a UK originally UK vehicle.
8:53
Speaker 1: Who prepped the vehicle in the UK. Was it a
8:55
Speaker 1: Folies vehicle or no.
8:57
Speaker 4: It was just it was like a plumbers van commercial vehicle,
9:01
Speaker 4: and the people who made the original trip down from
9:04
Speaker 4: the UK to Africa. They kind of did have the
9:07
Speaker 4: basic stuff right, the roof rack, the had some drawers,
9:11
Speaker 4: the tent and it was very, very very basic. They
9:15
Speaker 4: put new seats in it and that was basically it.
9:17
Speaker 4: And I had the whole thing, the maintenance, the regular
9:20
Speaker 4: maintenance done, so it was extremely basic, which is kind
9:24
Speaker 4: of what we were looking for, right, And if you're
9:25
Speaker 4: looking for like a really simple basic vehicle, you can
9:28
Speaker 4: do far worse than mid nineties land Rover, and so
9:33
Speaker 4: ours is a it's a nineteen ninety two, so it's
9:35
Speaker 4: a two hundred TDI, kind of the last of the
9:37
Speaker 4: two hundred tdi's five speed, and really very little in
9:41
Speaker 4: the terms of mechanical modifications or upgrades. We tried to
9:46
Speaker 4: keep it almost entirely stock, replace parts with land Rover parts,
9:49
Speaker 4: just try to keep things as like possible, as simple
9:52
Speaker 4: and as stock as possible. The one issue with this
9:55
Speaker 4: vehicle when we decided to buy it was a it
9:56
Speaker 4: was located in Ada Sababa, not anywhere close to Botswana.
10:02
Speaker 4: So we went back and forth with the with the
10:03
Speaker 4: sellers and he said, he said, well, you know something,
10:06
Speaker 4: there's something. It probably needs new rear shocks.
10:08
Speaker 3: It's like okay.
10:09
Speaker 4: So I bought some shocks and stuffed in my suitcase
10:13
Speaker 4: and we flew one way from Botswana to Atis and
10:17
Speaker 4: they picked us up and two days later we were
10:19
Speaker 4: driving south back to back to Botswana.
10:22
Speaker 2: Cool.
10:22
Speaker 4: So then we spent you know, a couple of months
10:24
Speaker 4: just driving around East and southern Africa. That begins the
10:28
Speaker 4: land you know, the land Rover love affair.
10:31
Speaker 1: And then and then you enjoyed the vehicle so much
10:33
Speaker 1: and it was just old enough when you returned back
10:36
Speaker 1: to the US correct that you decided to ship it.
10:40
Speaker 4: Yep, And we put it on a container in Cape
10:42
Speaker 4: Town and shipped it to Vancouver, British Columbia. So it
10:45
Speaker 4: actually took like two months. It was so long.
10:47
Speaker 2: That's probably one of the longest sea voyages that you
10:50
Speaker 2: could do, I would think, so.
10:52
Speaker 4: Yeah, And it ended up being the less expensive option. Interestingly,
10:55
Speaker 4: the shipping agent said, look, if you're willing to wait,
10:57
Speaker 4: you know, for a while, it's going to cost you
10:59
Speaker 4: less money. Actually pretty seamless in terms of shipping. Like
11:01
Speaker 4: you always her nightmares about shipping vehicles, but we had
11:04
Speaker 4: zero issues.
11:05
Speaker 1: And interesting that you chose to ship it into Canada.
11:08
Speaker 1: Do one of you have in the Canadian passport or
11:10
Speaker 1: what decided on.
11:12
Speaker 4: No, we just shipped it to Canada and uh t
11:17
Speaker 4: I p yeah, essentially, and it was less expensive. It
11:19
Speaker 4: was pretty close to our Homegome.
11:21
Speaker 2: I think it's easier to send it into Canada or
11:23
Speaker 2: people will send up into Vera Cruz and you just
11:25
Speaker 2: avoid the whole right, the whole port system.
11:29
Speaker 1: I've heard the port suspicions around the venders.
11:33
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, it was. It was fantastic though. When we
11:35
Speaker 4: opened the container and I hooked up the battery, turned
11:39
Speaker 4: the key and it started on the first after two
11:41
Speaker 4: months in a container, started on the first turn of
11:43
Speaker 4: the key, and good loyal dog. It is right.
11:46
Speaker 3: I had exactly the opposite experience. We shipped the lander
11:50
Speaker 3: of it from Florida to the UK. It was just
11:53
Speaker 3: off though i'd finished rebuilding it as a CAMPI yeah,
11:56
Speaker 3: I couldn't have started. Luckily, I had parted somebody's car
11:59
Speaker 3: that an I just carried on tigging at this thing. Yeah,
12:02
Speaker 3: in second and until it eventually it splits it to life,
12:05
Speaker 3: and then I had to drive it across the entire country.
12:08
Speaker 3: You're right, it's traumatizing driving.
12:10
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I mean I like listen, I'm a recovery
12:13
Speaker 2: and added addict to myself. I'm definitely still land River curious,
12:17
Speaker 2: but moved on to German things.
12:21
Speaker 1: Have you owned any other land Rovers or this, of course?
12:24
Speaker 3: Yeah?
12:24
Speaker 4: Yeah, I had a soft ash range of a Classic
12:27
Speaker 4: for a little while.
12:28
Speaker 1: Boy, those cars are just awesome when they work, they
12:31
Speaker 1: are just this.
12:32
Speaker 4: One had a four point six block from Atlantic British
12:36
Speaker 4: and so it was a little bit, a little bit more,
12:39
Speaker 4: a little moreof behind it, uh.
12:41
Speaker 2: Slightly faster in nineteen sixties Buick engine all.
12:43
Speaker 4: Right, exactly. Yeah, Yeah, that architecture is pretty ancient. Yeah,
12:47
Speaker 4: also really great vehicle. It gave us more headaches than
12:51
Speaker 4: I think the Defender ever ever has. Honestly, the Defender
12:54
Speaker 4: has been dead reliable. The only time anything is broken
12:58
Speaker 4: on that machine is when I've other people to work
13:01
Speaker 4: on it.
13:02
Speaker 1: You just have to be diligent with them. That's it.
13:03
Speaker 2: Yeah, let's let's dive into that.
13:06
Speaker 1: So one more, one more. Oh, but we got to
13:09
Speaker 1: talk about you and your Landovers and my landover exactly
13:12
Speaker 1: real quick. We'll finish, all right, That's what's I know.
13:16
Speaker 1: I know it is the elephant. It is the elephant
13:18
Speaker 1: in the room. But all right, and I'm going to
13:21
Speaker 1: be the I'm going to be the contrarian on that
13:23
Speaker 1: because I'm actually not so convinced.
13:25
Speaker 2: That defenders are that I don't think they're that bad.
13:27
Speaker 1: I have a theory about that. I mean, we're talking
13:30
Speaker 1: about classic defenders. Lots of landovers in my life, lots
13:34
Speaker 1: of time in defenders, fortunately all around the world, not
13:37
Speaker 1: as not quite as many, I think only five continents,
13:39
Speaker 1: so not as many as as Graham over here. But
13:42
Speaker 1: we have definitely had great experiences in classic defenders, and
13:45
Speaker 1: they've been They've never left me stranded. And I had
13:49
Speaker 1: a t D five with a Dormobile conversion on it
13:53
Speaker 1: for several years that I was babysitting for a good
13:55
Speaker 1: friend of mine. We worked at an agreement where I
13:58
Speaker 1: paid him to babysitters car in the United States with
14:01
Speaker 1: with the Guatemalan plates, so it was a way it
14:06
Speaker 1: was totally legit. It was totally legit. It's basically, yeah,
14:09
Speaker 1: it's a rental agreement, not an ownership. And that was
14:12
Speaker 1: a beautiful car. The TD five was wonderful. I was
14:14
Speaker 1: really impressed with the motor. It was a very reliable vehicle. Actually,
14:18
Speaker 1: very few leaks even they continued to improve that through
14:22
Speaker 1: the through life cycle. Drove around Iceland in a two
14:25
Speaker 1: thousand and fifteen Defender, So yeah, it had the new dash,
14:30
Speaker 1: so even though it was minus eight thousand or whatever
14:33
Speaker 1: it was in January, it had heated seats from the
14:36
Speaker 1: factory and it had the vents in the dash, and
14:39
Speaker 1: it actually was a totally comfortable vehicle to drive, even
14:43
Speaker 1: in really cold conditions.
14:44
Speaker 4: And that was kind of near the end of the run.
14:46
Speaker 4: It was og Defender, Yeah.
14:48
Speaker 3: Yeah, four it was.
14:50
Speaker 1: It was the Puma motor exactly. And it was great
14:52
Speaker 1: six speed manual, which I don't know that that was
14:55
Speaker 1: actually an advantage the six speed. It was with that
14:58
Speaker 1: much torque and how it aid the torque, you were
15:01
Speaker 1: shifting a lot, which I didn't seem to be an advantage.
15:05
Speaker 1: Right now, I have this the Defender that's here in
15:07
Speaker 1: the same room with us, since we you know, we
15:09
Speaker 1: have classic Defenders representing right now in the podcast. But
15:13
Speaker 1: this is a nineteen eighty six Defender one ten. It
15:17
Speaker 1: is a two door. It was originally a pickup, so
15:20
Speaker 1: it was purchased out of the UK and I have
15:24
Speaker 1: it with a good friend of mine, Marco's West camp,
15:26
Speaker 1: and we we use the vehicle together on and off,
15:29
Speaker 1: and it has been totally reliable. It has started every
15:34
Speaker 1: single time. The one thing about this vehicle that has
15:38
Speaker 1: been an issue though, it's the leaks. And I think
15:40
Speaker 1: it's because I don't drive it that often. It just
15:42
Speaker 1: it has developed a lot of really badly everything. So yeah,
15:48
Speaker 1: power steering it like it's pretty much all of it
15:51
Speaker 1: is leaking now. So I just need to go from
15:52
Speaker 1: front to back and replace all of those seals. But
15:56
Speaker 1: it has been a joy to drive. It's got the
15:59
Speaker 1: soft on it, roll the sides up in the summertime,
16:02
Speaker 1: and Prescott and there's a few things that will make
16:04
Speaker 1: me smile as much as that car will. So you know,
16:07
Speaker 1: land Rovers are defenders. Are something that I have always loved,
16:10
Speaker 1: and I think it goes back to mutual of Omaha.
16:14
Speaker 1: Looking at them going across the African Savannah, it just
16:19
Speaker 1: kind of buried into my psyche that that is an
16:22
Speaker 1: adventure vehicle. So and how about you, Matt.
16:25
Speaker 2: I think I'm here because of land River.
16:27
Speaker 1: You are actually, yeah, you would just stop working for
16:30
Speaker 1: land Rover when you pulled up.
16:31
Speaker 2: Even even before that, before that, I got a I
16:33
Speaker 2: got a Discovery one for you know, probably like an
16:37
Speaker 2: Xbox and a ham sandwich that I traded for it,
16:40
Speaker 2: and it was really cheap. It was I think it
16:42
Speaker 2: was Rioja Red the d one. I love that car.
16:46
Speaker 2: I think to this day it's the maybe maybe the
16:50
Speaker 2: car I've owned the longest. Oh, which is maybe disturbing
16:53
Speaker 2: he's wrapping the Disco two shirt. But I learned everything
16:57
Speaker 2: on that car. I got it when I was sixteen,
16:59
Speaker 2: IP my high school graduation money buying an old man
17:03
Speaker 2: EMU lyft from Expedition Exchange. It's why I joined Expedition
17:07
Speaker 2: Portal at sixteen, and that is really what I think
17:10
Speaker 2: led me here.
17:11
Speaker 3: Man.
17:11
Speaker 2: Then I went to college, I became learned, and I
17:14
Speaker 2: traded it for a land Cruiser, and then I traded
17:16
Speaker 2: that land Cruiser for a crawd Trocket in February in Chicago.
17:21
Speaker 2: So that really wasn't smart.
17:22
Speaker 4: You learned, you said, you learned.
17:25
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it does get complicated from there. But when
17:29
Speaker 2: I had moved to Prescott to work for Overland Journal
17:32
Speaker 2: on Expision Portal twenty eleven or something, I had a
17:36
Speaker 2: jeep and I traded that for a Series two A
17:39
Speaker 2: one oh nine. His name was Ralph.
17:42
Speaker 1: Yeah, Ralph was awesome.
17:43
Speaker 2: Ralph was really cool. Ralph was cooler than me. But
17:45
Speaker 2: Ralph leaked a lot, and I just really couldn't afford
17:48
Speaker 2: to maintain or put that much emphasis in that vehicle,
17:52
Speaker 2: Like it couldn't. I took it on a few trips
17:55
Speaker 2: and it was a miracle that it survived, and it
17:58
Speaker 2: was one of the more emotional driving experiences that I've
18:02
Speaker 2: ever had in a vehicle. You really had to work it.
18:05
Speaker 2: There was no power steering it. Really, I like to
18:08
Speaker 2: think taught me how to drive off road.
18:11
Speaker 1: Because if you did, you drew, you drove it off road.
18:14
Speaker 1: I mean I have pictures of that thing. Yeah, air
18:16
Speaker 1: under the tires climbing up that shelf outside of this.
18:20
Speaker 2: I remember that photo and that. The scary thing to
18:22
Speaker 2: that was the way that the brake master cylinder was
18:26
Speaker 2: on this series two A one o nine's is you
18:29
Speaker 2: had to bleed them at like a fort literally put
18:31
Speaker 2: the front of the vehicle at a forty five degree
18:33
Speaker 2: angle to get this air bubble to come out. So
18:35
Speaker 2: if you wanted the brakes to work, you had to
18:37
Speaker 2: get really good at like pumping them like five times.
18:39
Speaker 2: So that was really terrifying.
18:41
Speaker 1: I remember that moment.
18:43
Speaker 2: But you know, there's such there's such simple vehicles, and
18:47
Speaker 2: I will agree with when people say land Rovers aren't reliable. Unfortunately,
18:51
Speaker 2: it's probably a fact. I don't know all I don't
18:56
Speaker 2: know if the series and the Defenders necessarily deserve that reputation,
19:01
Speaker 2: that's what I would agree with. I think there was
19:03
Speaker 2: a lot of you know, land Rover Landover never does
19:06
Speaker 2: things the easy way, and they never really used the
19:11
Speaker 2: best suppliers.
19:13
Speaker 3: I guess, well, you're talking about the Prince of Darkness
19:15
Speaker 3: Luke Luke.
19:16
Speaker 2: Yeah, and then they went to BMW. You know, like
19:20
Speaker 2: from an American perspective, we stopped getting the Defender in
19:24
Speaker 2: ninety seven. We only got the one ten for one
19:26
Speaker 2: year for all intents and purposes a novelty.
19:29
Speaker 1: They were marketing exercise.
19:31
Speaker 2: They were there, weren't that many around. A lot of
19:34
Speaker 2: them were owned by collectors. You didn't really see that
19:37
Speaker 2: many of them being used so enthusiasts of until the
19:42
Speaker 2: twenty five year rule kicked in and eighty three model
19:45
Speaker 2: year vehicles could be brought in with one tens and
19:48
Speaker 2: nineties and things. Most of the land River community in
19:50
Speaker 2: the US was while it was Discoveries and it was
19:53
Speaker 2: range Rovers, and those vehicles had so many electronics that
19:58
Speaker 2: maybe land Rover didn't have any business, but they were
20:01
Speaker 2: also luxury vehicles that depreciated rapidly and they weren't historically maintained.
20:07
Speaker 1: Yeah, after the first owner, they were typically not changed.
20:09
Speaker 3: Yeah.
20:09
Speaker 2: So I think that you have to look at there's
20:12
Speaker 2: like the Defender, the Classic Defender, and then there's everything else,
20:15
Speaker 2: and they're almost two different companies, you know. So I
20:18
Speaker 2: think when we kind of joke about about land Rover
20:21
Speaker 2: and not being super reliable or then being super dependable,
20:25
Speaker 2: I think it is maybe a little bit of an
20:27
Speaker 2: American perspective because of what we were able to get.
20:32
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it applies around. If you talk to
20:34
Speaker 1: an Australian Overlander, they're going to say the same thing
20:37
Speaker 1: about land Rovers.
20:38
Speaker 3: Yeah.
20:38
Speaker 1: But again, like the whole thing is elevated though if
20:40
Speaker 1: you're in Australia, you're comparing a one ten Classic one
20:44
Speaker 1: ten to a seventy series land Cruiser, so like the
20:47
Speaker 1: even the land cruisers are better there, So you know,
20:49
Speaker 1: I think the whole the whole high watermark moves in
20:53
Speaker 1: places like South Africa and in Australia where the vehicles
20:57
Speaker 1: are just better in general. You could get a Nissan Patrol,
21:00
Speaker 1: which is an amazing We never got that car other
21:02
Speaker 1: than in the sixties. But so for the most part,
21:06
Speaker 1: I think that land Rover Defenders are quite reliable, but
21:10
Speaker 1: they have some downsides. I mean, it's just important to
21:13
Speaker 1: talk about it. Up until the last couple of years,
21:16
Speaker 1: they didn't have any form of traction control, so they
21:18
Speaker 1: were open differentials other than the center differential lock, and
21:22
Speaker 1: land Rover achieved traction through lots of articulation, which also
21:25
Speaker 1: made them a little more sporting on the road because
21:29
Speaker 1: they had so much body roll. You know, they never
21:31
Speaker 1: had differential locks like the land Cruiser did, so they
21:34
Speaker 1: or the Jeep Wrangler or a g Wagon, so they
21:37
Speaker 1: never quite performed at the same level off road as
21:41
Speaker 1: those other marks.
21:42
Speaker 2: You know.
21:42
Speaker 1: Now, of course, a modern Defender has diff locks. But
21:46
Speaker 1: you could get traction control in the later years, which
21:48
Speaker 1: also really made a huge difference for those cars. I
21:50
Speaker 1: drove one with traction control. You combine that articulation with
21:54
Speaker 1: just a little bit of break traction control and.
21:56
Speaker 2: It did get the trash control.
21:59
Speaker 3: No after that basically got a new murder and an
22:02
Speaker 3: ECU gotcha okay much that was.
22:05
Speaker 2: Because there was a point when they started integrating like
22:08
Speaker 2: some Discovery two stuff into them. I want to say,
22:11
Speaker 2: with traction control.
22:12
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, for sure. I mean the the Puma model
22:15
Speaker 1: that I had in Iceland had abs and traction control. Yeah,
22:20
Speaker 1: when it was nice.
22:21
Speaker 2: When I was running the magazine in Australia, I had
22:23
Speaker 2: a I think it was a twenty sixteen. It was
22:25
Speaker 2: like the final addition. And I want to say that
22:28
Speaker 2: there's two Pumas. There was a two four earlier and
22:32
Speaker 2: two two which was later. I think it was a
22:34
Speaker 2: get Trag six speed from a Mustang or something. Nice gearbox,
22:39
Speaker 2: nice engine, but then it was all working together with
22:42
Speaker 2: the same transfer case LT two thirty two thirty like,
22:46
Speaker 2: which is very reliable. But you know, I pushed it
22:49
Speaker 2: clutching on a twenty sixteen vehicle. You could hear the
22:52
Speaker 2: drum clients flap and you're like, I don't think the
22:56
Speaker 2: German gearbox likes this.
23:00
Speaker 3: You know, the Puma. I don't know if I consider
23:01
Speaker 3: that a classic defender. Obviously it is, but it was
23:04
Speaker 3: just so different from what came before it. So my
23:07
Speaker 3: theory and the reliability thing and talking about you're saying
23:10
Speaker 3: about how it is in the States now globally, you
23:13
Speaker 3: must remember a lot of these like the Classic Defenders series,
23:16
Speaker 3: et cetera. They were used by the military in a
23:20
Speaker 3: lot of these countries, especially the ex British colonies Australia,
23:25
Speaker 3: South Africa. Sure, and there were just hundreds of thousands
23:29
Speaker 3: of these vehicles bobbing about. And like what I had
23:32
Speaker 3: is a lot of people buy an ex military vehicle
23:37
Speaker 3: and then they fix it themselves. And I think that
23:39
Speaker 3: was the thing. A few years ago Solandrover was saying
23:41
Speaker 3: that what's seventy five percent of all Anders ever made
23:44
Speaker 3: or still on the road, right, but they're being maintained
23:47
Speaker 3: by the guy that's driving it. So you have a
23:51
Speaker 3: lot of guys like me backyard mechanics and buy a
23:55
Speaker 3: vehicle not really knowing what to do with the thing.
23:57
Speaker 3: I get breaks down, okay, and I go like sweat
23:59
Speaker 3: and figure out how to fix it. And you see
24:02
Speaker 3: these guys on the side of the road, you know,
24:04
Speaker 3: And it's all a learning process when you're buying a
24:06
Speaker 3: secondhand vehicle that's been beaten to death by soldiers in
24:09
Speaker 3: some cases, and then you've got to fix it yourself,
24:12
Speaker 3: and because you don't want to take it to lander
24:14
Speaker 3: over the land Rover spares, for instance, are very expensive.
24:17
Speaker 3: So what you do is you get crappy off the
24:19
Speaker 3: market stuff like what's the brick part the blue boxes,
24:23
Speaker 3: there's another name for it, but on the that set.
24:26
Speaker 3: But you hit the nail on the head. The thing
24:29
Speaker 3: about the reliability with these vehicles is keeping them stuck
24:32
Speaker 3: and using the best parts you can afford. In your
24:34
Speaker 3: case is to be the land Rover parts. But I've
24:36
Speaker 3: had it so many times where I've you know, broke
24:39
Speaker 3: ass Overlander and I get the part I can't afford.
24:42
Speaker 3: But it's a false economy because guess what you're sitting
24:45
Speaker 3: on the side of the road a thousand k's later
24:47
Speaker 3: fixing what you just fixed. So from the reliability point
24:52
Speaker 3: of view, mean my Defender go from Capetan all the
24:56
Speaker 3: way up to Dorus Alarm, all the way back down,
24:58
Speaker 3: didn't touch my toolbox, shipped over to South America, drove
25:02
Speaker 3: all the way up around Brazil right to the top,
25:05
Speaker 3: all the way back down again, all the way down
25:07
Speaker 3: to Schwaire. Nothing, not a day's problems. As soon as
25:11
Speaker 3: I hit altitude, everything started going a little bit. Now
25:15
Speaker 3: you're driving at what, what's five thousand meters and feet
25:18
Speaker 3: that's fifteen thousand. Yeah, sure, the cooling system starts freaking out.
25:22
Speaker 3: Everything starts getting a little bit under pressure. And then
25:25
Speaker 3: that's really for me, is like you're overloaded. You're at
25:28
Speaker 3: fifteen thousand feet, the cooling system doesn't know what the
25:31
Speaker 3: heck's going.
25:31
Speaker 1: You're asking a lot from it.
25:33
Speaker 3: Yeah, and then that kind of sets off a chain
25:36
Speaker 3: of events which kind of, well for me anyway, made
25:40
Speaker 3: the vehicle a little bit less reliable than it was before,
25:43
Speaker 3: but it's because I was putting it in pressure in
25:45
Speaker 3: extreme situation.
25:46
Speaker 4: I think that's an important point, sort of understanding the
25:49
Speaker 4: limits of the vehicle, right, whether that's how fast you
25:54
Speaker 4: can drive down the interstate, which is not very.
25:56
Speaker 1: Fast, or fifty miles an hour in the case of
25:58
Speaker 1: the one.
25:58
Speaker 4: Behind you, or what kind of say, off road terrain
26:03
Speaker 4: you're tackling, right, I think that goes a long ways
26:05
Speaker 4: because the classic Defender is a machine that gives you
26:08
Speaker 4: a lot of feedback as to what's going on with
26:11
Speaker 4: the vehicle as you're driving at mechanical feedback, road feel,
26:15
Speaker 4: all those different things, and so all the sounds, all
26:18
Speaker 4: the smells that, Yeah, it's giving you a lot of information,
26:25
Speaker 4: and I think paying attention to that information is really important.
26:28
Speaker 4: I mean that goes for any classic car, but I
26:29
Speaker 4: think in a Defender, when you're putting it maybe through
26:32
Speaker 4: its paces in a remote location or an off road context. Yeah,
26:36
Speaker 4: understanding those those limits. Because the Defender is great up
26:40
Speaker 4: until a certain point, like you're mentioning, you know, it
26:42
Speaker 4: doesn't have the locking differentials, it doesn't necessarily have the rubber,
26:46
Speaker 4: you know, if you're running.
26:47
Speaker 1: Smaller tires, yeah, if you're running.
26:49
Speaker 4: Strolling stock tires, yeah, just you know, being aware of
26:52
Speaker 4: those things. So if you keep the vehicle and it's
26:54
Speaker 4: sort of a sweet spot and you're highly conscious of
26:57
Speaker 4: what's going on with vehicle as you drive it, then
27:00
Speaker 4: they're awesome.
27:00
Speaker 1: I think that's the case. I mean, the one, the
27:02
Speaker 1: one here in the room with us is a stock vehicle.
27:05
Speaker 1: Like even the front bumper is something that was sold
27:08
Speaker 1: by land Rover. It's the safety devices front bumper. It's
27:12
Speaker 1: it's got michelin X els, it's factory suspension. There's no
27:16
Speaker 1: modifications to the car, and every time it starts, it
27:20
Speaker 1: drives great. It is too low geared, so like the
27:24
Speaker 1: fifty miles an hour is really rough because that is
27:26
Speaker 1: a one point six to one high range. This was
27:29
Speaker 1: a farm implement in the UK somewhere at a farm
27:32
Speaker 1: mail it was. It was the one with a one
27:33
Speaker 1: point six transfer case high range. So you know, that's
27:37
Speaker 1: the low range of a sprinter, it was, and that's
27:41
Speaker 1: the high range in this in this vehicle.
27:43
Speaker 2: So the discoveries are like one one.
27:45
Speaker 1: Point two exactly, and this this vehicle would benefit from
27:48
Speaker 1: a one point two or a one point four. A
27:50
Speaker 1: lot of defenders came with one point four as well.
27:52
Speaker 4: We have those, we have that in ours our transfer cases.
27:56
Speaker 1: That yeah, that would just take a little bit of
27:58
Speaker 1: the edge off of the highway. And then I'm thinking
28:00
Speaker 1: about maybe doing the eight point twenty fives that I
28:03
Speaker 1: bought off you that are sitting in the back.
28:05
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, those are taller.
28:08
Speaker 4: But so for like touring in Africa, sort of having
28:11
Speaker 4: that speed limitter is great, right, you don't want to
28:15
Speaker 4: be driving fast anyway for the most part.
28:18
Speaker 1: Yeah, eighty kilometers an hour is how fast you drive
28:21
Speaker 1: exactly in a country that doesn't have interstates.
28:24
Speaker 4: Yeah, bombing down Interstate fifteen, you know, in the middle
28:27
Speaker 4: of nowhere in Utah, and the Defender is a long,
28:30
Speaker 4: long day.
28:31
Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, it's a different creature. I mean we did,
28:33
Speaker 3: we drive down Waste Africa, and I don't think I'll
28:35
Speaker 3: go into fourth yeah yeah, for months, sure I would have.
28:39
Speaker 3: I mean I missed that fourth Yeah. And then you
28:42
Speaker 3: get to South Africa and you're on and everyone's driving.
28:44
Speaker 3: It's seventy eighty miles an hour and you're like, whoa.
28:49
Speaker 1: Everything's sped up, and everything sped up.
28:51
Speaker 3: The funny thing though, sorry to come back to when
28:54
Speaker 3: I first bought the vehicle, I was the guy driving
28:56
Speaker 3: seventy five miles an hour my TD five, the Defender
28:58
Speaker 3: could do it. I'd be overtaking people on on the freeway. Sure,
29:01
Speaker 3: so the T five is a bit of a different bea.
29:03
Speaker 3: So you guys are going to start getting those motives
29:06
Speaker 3: soon next few years.
29:08
Speaker 1: Yeah, what was the first year?
29:09
Speaker 2: Two thousand and two, couple of years, because that was
29:13
Speaker 2: a BMW motor right, No, No.
29:15
Speaker 3: It's the Lost Land it was. It was released under BMW. Yeah,
29:21
Speaker 3: it's called the Storm.
29:22
Speaker 2: Actually, Okay, wasn't there like a South African only Defender
29:27
Speaker 2: that had a straight six.
29:29
Speaker 3: Yeah, it had a two point eight.
29:32
Speaker 2: I have a friend Max that has one of those.
29:34
Speaker 2: In South Africanan's like, there's like a whole like club
29:37
Speaker 2: around just that engine and just that land rover.
29:40
Speaker 1: Interesting.
29:41
Speaker 3: I mean imagine BMW power and reliability in a Defender. Yeah, yeah,
29:47
Speaker 3: those are like what do you call my cane's teeth?
29:50
Speaker 2: Rare?
29:51
Speaker 4: Well, Grenadier is going down there, Gadier is going straight.
29:56
Speaker 1: So let's talk a little bit about modification, because we
30:00
Speaker 1: just kind of dropped this bombshell that land rovers in
30:04
Speaker 1: general tend to perform best when they're at or near stock.
30:07
Speaker 1: And I've just never seen a really well executed, heavily
30:11
Speaker 1: modified land rover unless there's not much of a land
30:14
Speaker 1: rover left. But they do tend to perform really well
30:17
Speaker 1: close to stock. But there are things that need to
30:19
Speaker 1: be considered. So Graham, what are what do you feel
30:23
Speaker 1: for your vehicle, A Defender one thirty t D five?
30:26
Speaker 1: What were the necessary modifications for your travels that you
30:30
Speaker 1: made to the vehicle.
30:31
Speaker 3: I kept a stock standard in the beginning. She was
30:35
Speaker 3: a double cab one thirty. Yeah. Sure. I basically popped
30:38
Speaker 3: a roof taint on her and a topp her at
30:40
Speaker 3: the back of the draw system and she was ready
30:42
Speaker 3: to go. I think I changed the tires. I was
30:45
Speaker 3: any of the impression that big tires were better. Yeah,
30:47
Speaker 3: so I got thirty twos.
30:48
Speaker 1: And what did you find was that was bigger tires necessary?
30:52
Speaker 3: Hello, a love bit and there's cookie cutter. Yeah, save
30:55
Speaker 3: fifty sixteen's sure, I hate those things.
30:58
Speaker 1: Only tired that's almost killed me is the one some
31:00
Speaker 1: four point fives a wet road, right, Yeah, with no abs.
31:06
Speaker 3: You don't want that. Yeah. We kept just stuck standard
31:09
Speaker 3: pretty much. I mean, you know, bolted a couple of
31:13
Speaker 3: things on her. And that was the one beautiful thing
31:15
Speaker 3: about the Defenders is that you can just it's lego,
31:17
Speaker 3: both things on them, dewel holes in it. You do
31:19
Speaker 3: what you want to. Then they just they just suck
31:21
Speaker 3: it all up. So we kept just standard, but the
31:24
Speaker 3: little slightly large tires, and then I changed to thirty
31:27
Speaker 3: threes for the Amazon Mud Terrain.
31:31
Speaker 1: Mud Trends wet size tire was that like a two
31:33
Speaker 1: fifty five eighty five sixteen.
31:36
Speaker 3: There was thirty two twelve point five, which was awesome
31:41
Speaker 3: in the jungle and in the rainy season, except that
31:45
Speaker 3: it stuck out like two inches on the side, so
31:47
Speaker 3: the entire vehicle was just covered in an inch of
31:51
Speaker 3: So it's dark in there all the time, and every
31:53
Speaker 3: time you open the window, you crank it over, get
31:56
Speaker 3: some air in there, and you hit another puddle and
31:58
Speaker 3: the whole family gets full of mud. And then so, yeah,
32:00
Speaker 3: that was a bad idea. It worked for us, It
32:02
Speaker 3: got us through. We never we never had problems in
32:04
Speaker 3: the jungles as in art. But then you get back
32:05
Speaker 3: onto normal roads and you're stuck to these huge tires
32:07
Speaker 3: and your wheel bearing stock. So now I'm running going
32:11
Speaker 3: down to two eighty five, seventy five or sixteen, and
32:15
Speaker 3: I might even go down to a two sixty five.
32:18
Speaker 3: But in terms of future modifications, is a few things
32:23
Speaker 3: I'd like to do. Did you change the suspension at all? Oh? Yes,
32:26
Speaker 3: I did. Yeah, sorry, And I found that actually the
32:29
Speaker 3: stock suspension would have been the best bed from the beginning,
32:32
Speaker 3: maybe with some spaces quil spaces, but I've been through
32:36
Speaker 3: the gamut with the suspension and I look back and
32:40
Speaker 3: actually space.
32:41
Speaker 2: Because don't the one thirties have that twin spring on
32:44
Speaker 2: the back?
32:44
Speaker 3: The spring inside?
32:46
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's what that's what this one has, although we
32:48
Speaker 1: removed it because it was I mean, I don't put
32:50
Speaker 1: anything in it, so it was like it rowed horribly.
32:53
Speaker 1: But yeah, this one is the high cap.
32:55
Speaker 2: We're sisch gets one row of p andies from the
33:00
Speaker 2: local garden store.
33:01
Speaker 1: Yes, that's right. Yeah, it's perfect. It basically it hauls
33:04
Speaker 1: around occasional mountain bike and yeah, grocery from sprouts.
33:11
Speaker 3: Yeah, so the future upgrades. I've lost a few horses
33:14
Speaker 3: over the years, and I think half of that might
33:16
Speaker 3: be because I'm a really bad mechanic and it's never
33:19
Speaker 3: really been serviced by a very good mechanic. I've tried
33:23
Speaker 3: adjusting the the turbo waistcate and taking out the muffler
33:28
Speaker 3: and doing all these things, trying to get power out
33:29
Speaker 3: of it, especially up at altitude. And the secret there,
33:32
Speaker 3: and it was a great thing with the TV five
33:34
Speaker 3: is you just disconnect the maf and she runs like
33:36
Speaker 3: she's at sea level. The thing with the TD five
33:38
Speaker 3: is chippable, so you can get you can get up
33:40
Speaker 3: to two hundred and fifty horse power out of it,
33:42
Speaker 3: and the standards one hundred and twenty. Wow. Yeah, and
33:45
Speaker 3: you put in a larger intercular, you put in a
33:48
Speaker 3: new you can upgrade the turbos. There's a lot of
33:51
Speaker 3: stuff you can do to make it actually quite a
33:52
Speaker 3: performance vehicle. Sorry relative, it's all relative. Yeah, sorry, I'm
33:58
Speaker 3: carefully considering the upgrades for the I don't need it
34:00
Speaker 3: to be a performance vehicle, but I would like to
34:03
Speaker 3: be able to overtake a truck in Baja and not die.
34:08
Speaker 2: Yeah, that would be fun.
34:09
Speaker 3: That would be nice. Yeah, yeah, or at least not
34:12
Speaker 3: You know the thing when you're shifting the seat forward
34:14
Speaker 3: because you think it makes the trucks.
34:16
Speaker 2: I always find slapping the door panel encourage a few
34:20
Speaker 2: more horses.
34:20
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah.
34:22
Speaker 1: So that's been the essentially the modifications that you've made,
34:25
Speaker 1: and it's.
34:27
Speaker 2: You've obviously done a life stuff to like the livability
34:30
Speaker 2: the vehicle and camper and that.
34:32
Speaker 1: Yeah you added you did add a camper. So let's
34:34
Speaker 1: talk a little bit about that conversion that you did,
34:36
Speaker 1: because you even loped the two back doors off, right.
34:40
Speaker 3: So there was a challenge for me because I had
34:42
Speaker 3: two kids, and this is back in twenty seventeen, and
34:44
Speaker 3: I wanted to keep on traveling and I knew eventually
34:47
Speaker 3: the kids would want to move on. Now, how do
34:50
Speaker 3: you make a vehicle a camper that can accommodate four
34:53
Speaker 3: humans adults, large people so African size, and make comfortable
35:00
Speaker 3: for everyone. And eventually I figured it, we'll just make
35:04
Speaker 3: it comfortable with the people in front and the people
35:06
Speaker 3: in the back just have to suffer. I'm joking, but
35:09
Speaker 3: they actually had larger seats in this and that other.
35:11
Speaker 3: They just didn't have the great visibility. But what's interesting
35:14
Speaker 3: is I bought the Defender for nine thousand dollars in
35:16
Speaker 3: two thousand and nine. I stripped her down and built
35:20
Speaker 3: changed it into a camper in Florida in twenty seventeen,
35:23
Speaker 3: and I sold all the stuff that I took off
35:24
Speaker 3: for nine thousand dollars, which is pretty cool. And then
35:27
Speaker 3: I basically built the box on the back with the
35:29
Speaker 3: pop top and then the rear door that you can
35:31
Speaker 3: you can you enter in a nice big back door.
35:33
Speaker 3: The idea was all about space and visibility and that
35:37
Speaker 3: the Defender just took it, you know, And I took
35:39
Speaker 3: the whole vehicle a part in the day.
35:41
Speaker 1: Who built the camper for you? I did, Oh, you
35:43
Speaker 1: built the walls and the.
35:45
Speaker 4: They have a great little YouTube video on your channel
35:48
Speaker 4: from back then. It sort of details the whole build.
35:51
Speaker 4: It's really great.
35:52
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I did it in a greenhouse in Florida.
35:56
Speaker 1: Fantastic.
35:57
Speaker 3: No, it was not.
35:58
Speaker 1: Yeah, oh, I mean in hindsight, I mean it was terrible.
36:01
Speaker 1: I'm sure at the time, but it was what a
36:02
Speaker 1: great story. Now it wasn't a greenhouse in the summer.
36:06
Speaker 3: It wasn't, but it doesn't matter.
36:09
Speaker 2: We had to have an industrial sized fan and.
36:12
Speaker 3: Full of eyes. Otherwise I would have died.
36:14
Speaker 4: But in the box to telf a sort of semi
36:16
Speaker 4: prefab right, or did you guys do the whole everythingels?
36:21
Speaker 4: It was total composites. They sent us the panels, sent
36:24
Speaker 4: us the windows, right, and the extrusions. We had to
36:27
Speaker 4: make a work table out of.
36:29
Speaker 3: The packing palettes and the packingwood ship came in. Excuse me,
36:36
Speaker 3: I made that to a work table on the coral.
36:39
Speaker 3: You know how in Florida the ground is all coral. Yeah.
36:42
Speaker 3: So that's why if you look at my landy, you
36:45
Speaker 3: look at the back. Don't ever take a square to
36:47
Speaker 3: the thing.
36:49
Speaker 1: Sounds like my house.
36:51
Speaker 3: But I was very proud of the landing. The one
36:54
Speaker 3: thing about the Defender one thirty is going to pay
36:56
Speaker 3: load of one thousand five hundred cages, which is class leading. Yeah,
37:00
Speaker 3: that was especially back there.
37:01
Speaker 1: Yeah over three pounds.
37:02
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that's crazy, Like that's f three point fifty.
37:06
Speaker 1: That's one territory.
37:08
Speaker 2: Like that's twice what my prospect or EXL has, right.
37:12
Speaker 3: And then if you look at the frame, this is
37:13
Speaker 3: the thing. Yeah, the defender is the chassis. The frame.
37:16
Speaker 3: That's a truck. Yeah, frame, I look at it. I'm
37:19
Speaker 3: driving a Dodge Ram twenty five hundred, and the frame
37:22
Speaker 3: on that thing is it doesn't even compare to the defender.
37:25
Speaker 3: The defender. It's like this, And that's the thing about
37:27
Speaker 3: the vehicle, And it's just so solid and you can
37:30
Speaker 3: do so much with it. And we were very happy
37:32
Speaker 3: with the bill that did the whole West Africa because
37:35
Speaker 3: we went to Europe after that and then too West Africa.
37:37
Speaker 3: All the Southern Africa. Box was perfect, didn't break, frame
37:41
Speaker 3: was perfect, Everything was good that I built to walk through. Yeah,
37:44
Speaker 3: we're very very happy with it. And if I look back,
37:47
Speaker 3: I don't think there's another vehicle that I could actually
37:49
Speaker 3: have done that with other than a tweater land cruise.
37:51
Speaker 1: Like a Troopy or something.
37:52
Speaker 3: Yeah, but they would just still involved a lot more cutting.
37:54
Speaker 1: And well there, yeah, and there's always the issue with
37:57
Speaker 1: a land Cruiser is that they're highly desirable, which means
38:00
Speaker 1: everywhere you go your vehicle is a target. I mean,
38:03
Speaker 1: I remember having this conversation with Cyril, who actually was
38:07
Speaker 1: the one that I rented the TD five one ten from,
38:11
Speaker 1: lived in Guatemala and he drove a range Over Classic
38:14
Speaker 1: every day and I said, how come you drive a
38:16
Speaker 1: range Rover Classic in Guatemala? He says, no one wants
38:19
Speaker 1: to steal it from me.
38:20
Speaker 2: Right, you know, there's there's something funny and something sad
38:24
Speaker 2: in that statement.
38:26
Speaker 1: There's not a market for stealing a range Over Classic
38:30
Speaker 1: and selling the parts. There was a Toyota, Whereas if
38:32
Speaker 1: you're driving around in an eighty series land Cruiser in
38:35
Speaker 1: Guatemala City, that's a very or Johannesburg that is a
38:39
Speaker 1: very valuable vehicle, or pick your country that you're traveling
38:43
Speaker 1: through Africa, a seventy series land Cruiser in all of
38:46
Speaker 1: the parts in it, the engine and the alternator and
38:48
Speaker 1: the axles, it's all extremely valuable. You roll in there
38:52
Speaker 1: in a Defender one thirty that's been customized and no
38:55
Speaker 1: one knows what it is, and it doesn't have market value,
39:00
Speaker 1: so you're not likely to have someone stick an ak
39:03
Speaker 1: to your head and take your car. Right, So, I
39:06
Speaker 1: think there's an advantage to that around land rovers that
39:09
Speaker 1: a lot of people don't understand is that they really aren't.
39:11
Speaker 1: They are a status symbol within a city, a large city,
39:15
Speaker 1: but everywhere else they don't have a lot of market value,
39:19
Speaker 1: so they're generally going to leave you alone. I mean,
39:21
Speaker 1: they may take your wallet, but they don't really want
39:23
Speaker 1: your car.
39:23
Speaker 3: Another thing is everyone's looking at Defender. You parked that
39:27
Speaker 3: at a anyway. I think the other thing is to
39:30
Speaker 3: be small pocket where it's visible or you know, you
39:33
Speaker 3: gotta be careful. But without Defender, we never had a problem.
39:36
Speaker 3: I think two reasons. One has always had two children
39:39
Speaker 3: in the backseat. But the other is wherever I park,
39:42
Speaker 3: all eyes were on it. So Nettief is going to
39:43
Speaker 3: come on messed with this thing. Yeah, you know everyone's
39:46
Speaker 3: staring at it, you.
39:47
Speaker 1: Know, because look cool adventure vehicle.
39:49
Speaker 3: Right every time I went to the shop, I'd come
39:50
Speaker 3: out and it'd be like there'd always be some dude
39:53
Speaker 3: walking around. It's any photos of it and stuff awesome,
39:56
Speaker 3: And I think that's the thing with the defenders as well.
39:58
Speaker 3: It's just so it's charming.
40:00
Speaker 2: There's something emotional to them, right, I mean you were
40:03
Speaker 2: kind of alluding to mutual omaha this a little bit
40:06
Speaker 2: before me. But you know, there's something i'll use the
40:10
Speaker 2: word like that feels authentic about traveling in a Defender.
40:14
Speaker 2: It's not the easiest thing that you can do. It's
40:17
Speaker 2: not the most comfortable, it's not the most reliable, but
40:21
Speaker 2: there's something about driving a Defender.
40:24
Speaker 3: I equate it to riding a motorcycle. Yeah, yeah, exactly,
40:27
Speaker 3: because you're if you're going to go, you know you're
40:30
Speaker 3: going to go to the stool, right, you get on
40:32
Speaker 3: your bike is preparation. But also you go to the
40:35
Speaker 3: store and you come back and you feel like, you know,
40:36
Speaker 3: you get a bit of a physics, right, It's the
40:39
Speaker 3: same with the Defender. There's no such thing as boring
40:41
Speaker 3: trip to the shops. So there's definitely that I kissed
40:43
Speaker 3: my vehicle. So how many times I go into it
40:45
Speaker 3: like a really difficult root or something, and I get
40:48
Speaker 3: to the end of it and I'm like, I've kissed it,
40:51
Speaker 3: thank you so much.
40:52
Speaker 2: The most emotional vehicles I've ever had that I've had
40:55
Speaker 2: the most connection and attachment with land rovers. Yeah, it's
40:59
Speaker 2: just because you are working on them so much, and
41:02
Speaker 2: and you developed this in the US, the discoveries would
41:06
Speaker 2: break all the time, so you had to remember disco web.
41:09
Speaker 2: Yeah sure, yeah, like the people that you met through
41:13
Speaker 2: through that and the community that was formed around the
41:16
Speaker 2: land rover world was just so great.
41:19
Speaker 3: Yeah.
41:19
Speaker 1: I wish I had appreciated disco Web more when I
41:22
Speaker 1: was first on it, because I would go on there,
41:25
Speaker 1: you know, thinking that I knew something and I knew nothing.
41:28
Speaker 1: I spent so much time, like defending some modification I
41:31
Speaker 1: made to the vehicle, when all these guys have they'd
41:34
Speaker 1: already been down that road and they were just trying
41:36
Speaker 1: to help me save myself from myself. And I looked,
41:40
Speaker 1: I look, I look back. I look back, and I'm like,
41:42
Speaker 1: why was I so stringently defending my position for these
41:47
Speaker 1: you know, control arms or whatever.
41:48
Speaker 2: Then I ever looked back at the thing, as you
41:50
Speaker 2: said on the internet.
41:52
Speaker 1: But what a lesson for me, of like I should
41:55
Speaker 1: have just shut up and listened a lot more. I mean,
41:57
Speaker 1: there's a reason, there's a reason why we have one
41:59
Speaker 1: mouth and two years. We need to spend a lot
42:01
Speaker 1: more time listening to people who know what they're talking about.
42:04
Speaker 1: And I wish I had listened to those guys a
42:06
Speaker 1: lot more because they were right. In the end of
42:08
Speaker 1: the day, they were Everything they said was right.
42:11
Speaker 4: And because so many people do work on their own vehicles,
42:13
Speaker 4: there's just a there's always a two edge sword with
42:15
Speaker 4: the internet knowledge, but there is a huge well of
42:18
Speaker 4: knowledge right about these vehicles, and the community in general
42:22
Speaker 4: is very positive. Yeah, I think it's shifted a little
42:25
Speaker 4: bit since the original defenders have become so incredibly valuable,
42:29
Speaker 4: and with a lot of imports coming in and you know,
42:32
Speaker 4: a lot of crazy auction price.
42:34
Speaker 1: There's there's shysters too, there's some people bringing in very
42:38
Speaker 1: questionable vehicles. Exactly a lot of lipstick on a pig
42:41
Speaker 1: right now.
42:41
Speaker 4: Yeah, so that's shifted a little bit. But I think
42:43
Speaker 4: in general, the lander of a community has been one
42:45
Speaker 4: of the most sort of like supportive and knowledgeable around
42:49
Speaker 4: sort of wherever. We were both in Africa.
42:51
Speaker 1: And yeah, they're great America for.
42:53
Speaker 4: Sure, I agree with that.
42:54
Speaker 3: I'll tell you a little story about the lander of
42:57
Speaker 3: a community. So obviously we have a know, a lot
43:01
Speaker 3: of land over people, a lot of clubs, they know us.
43:03
Speaker 3: They follow us, and we were driving that Ranger of
43:05
Speaker 3: a Classic across across the US which ten MPG, spluttering along,
43:13
Speaker 3: I love that thing. And we broke down next to
43:15
Speaker 3: a blueberry field. Broke down. Yeah yeah, the front of
43:19
Speaker 3: you j went pop. We managed to one hundred feet
43:24
Speaker 3: from where we broke down we could get cell signal,
43:26
Speaker 3: so Louisa went off and send out the you know,
43:29
Speaker 3: the smoke signals to the land rover community. Like, I
43:31
Speaker 3: think I might have told you this story. You did
43:33
Speaker 3: sure on the lost podcast.
43:34
Speaker 1: Yeah, but we can we can do the I want
43:36
Speaker 1: to hear it. We can do the shortened.
43:37
Speaker 3: Version, okay, the shortened vision. So basically pushed ourselves into
43:40
Speaker 3: the blueberry field, got hold of a chap from the
43:44
Speaker 3: main land Rover club. He does the Bruce, he does
43:46
Speaker 3: the main winter romp, which is all the land rovers.
43:49
Speaker 3: He's like, don't worry, I'll switt you're out. And then
43:51
Speaker 3: the owner of the farm came over and it turned
43:53
Speaker 3: out he had a series of work and I kicked
43:55
Speaker 3: myself from not taking the time to go see it.
43:57
Speaker 3: But his dad had gone to the UK. I might
44:00
Speaker 3: to muddle the story up. It basically brought a series,
44:03
Speaker 3: vehicle twittered around Europe, brought the vehicle back to the
44:06
Speaker 3: States with him. Who does that? Because it's the lander
44:09
Speaker 3: of it. That's why. Then this guy's brother, the son
44:14
Speaker 3: went to go study at Harvard Oxford or took the
44:17
Speaker 3: series with him as back to the UK. Back to
44:19
Speaker 3: the u K. They then went twuring. I think they
44:22
Speaker 3: flew over to Medium and there twited around the Europe
44:25
Speaker 3: and Morocco, Scandinavia and ship the land river back. Then
44:29
Speaker 3: there it sat in Maine in.
44:31
Speaker 2: You just happened to break down in this blueberry farm.
44:33
Speaker 3: Right right, And the guy had the most amazing lander
44:36
Speaker 3: of a story. Actually, I want to make a mission
44:37
Speaker 3: to go back there find it would And then the
44:40
Speaker 3: next morning, sorry, the next morning Breu showed up with
44:43
Speaker 3: a complete front prop shaft. J was in everything and
44:47
Speaker 3: half an hour days we're having bacon and eggs. So yeah,
44:51
Speaker 3: the land Rover community is just fantastic and there's just
44:53
Speaker 3: so many great stories within the community.
44:55
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's just it's a way to connect
44:58
Speaker 2: with people locally. When he tried, I think it adds
45:01
Speaker 2: to the experience and I think that's what's so special
45:04
Speaker 2: about I guess land Rover in general, but you know
45:07
Speaker 2: the defender in particular.
45:09
Speaker 1: Yeah, and here this is my thing about the whole reliability.
45:12
Speaker 1: I think that it's actually a cop out. It's actually
45:15
Speaker 1: a cop out to say, I never want my car
45:17
Speaker 1: to have a problem, Like, did we not decide to
45:20
Speaker 1: be adventurers? Did we not decide to go experience the world?
45:25
Speaker 1: And if you read like Ray Highland's drip across the
45:29
Speaker 1: Silk Road with this totally ill suited vehicle, and the
45:32
Speaker 1: amount of times that he interacted with the locals and
45:35
Speaker 1: they made a they would make a seal out of
45:37
Speaker 1: the brim of their hat or something like that. So
45:40
Speaker 1: I think that part of the for me, the connection
45:43
Speaker 1: with the land rover is is that you travel at
45:46
Speaker 1: a different pace, and you travel with a different mindset.
45:49
Speaker 1: You are far more likely to interact with the locals
45:51
Speaker 1: and need help from people in a community to have
45:55
Speaker 1: stories about blueberry farms. If you were driving a perfectly
45:59
Speaker 1: reliable vehicle, you would have already had the bacon and eggs.
46:02
Speaker 1: You would have never met this guy, you would have
46:04
Speaker 1: never had that moment, You would have never had someone
46:07
Speaker 1: else in the community that stepped up and came to
46:09
Speaker 1: your help. And you gave him that experience too. He
46:12
Speaker 1: got to come and be a part of your adventure.
46:14
Speaker 1: So I actually think that this whole reliability thing now,
46:18
Speaker 1: when I was crossing Antarctica, yes, take do you take
46:25
Speaker 1: the best tool for the job.
46:27
Speaker 2: I look back at all my serious trips, and none
46:30
Speaker 2: of them have been in land road.
46:32
Speaker 1: But if I'm crossing Africa next to this guy, though,
46:36
Speaker 1: if I'm crossing Africa or whatever else, you know, absolutely
46:39
Speaker 1: give me a who cares if the thing breaks down?
46:42
Speaker 1: Isn't that what we signed up for?
46:43
Speaker 3: Yeah?
46:43
Speaker 4: We have dozens of stories from our travels on that
46:45
Speaker 4: continent with the same outcomes, right, And I think it does.
46:50
Speaker 4: I equate it in some ways to folks who are
46:52
Speaker 4: traveling on like adventure bikes in Africa as well. So yeah,
46:55
Speaker 4: there's just less of a barrier when you're traveling in
46:59
Speaker 4: this rusty radially ricking with the window open because there's
47:04
Speaker 4: no other way to do.
47:05
Speaker 1: It well, because Graham and I don't fit in the
47:07
Speaker 1: Defender without the window.
47:09
Speaker 4: Yeah, And I think I think, particularly particularly in Africa,
47:13
Speaker 4: the Defender has this sort of particular place, like you
47:18
Speaker 4: were saying, everybody knows them, everybody has them. Around from
47:23
Speaker 4: you know, Egypt to South Africa right there. They're everywhere,
47:26
Speaker 4: and you know it's great at border posts and police checkpoints.
47:30
Speaker 4: You're less threatening, you're less of a target, you're less
47:35
Speaker 4: other I guess. And so yeah, the amount of interactions
47:40
Speaker 4: and conversations and experiences, little kids crawling all over the thing.
47:44
Speaker 4: And it's clear that like we travel in our one
47:47
Speaker 4: ten we didn't have a million dollars, right, it was obvious.
47:51
Speaker 4: It was easy to avoid bribes, it was easy to
47:54
Speaker 4: you know, have those really rich experiences that I think
47:56
Speaker 4: you're saying in terms of like that's why we do this, right,
48:00
Speaker 4: And yeah, they were extremely uncomfortable days, long days, days
48:04
Speaker 4: where I wish I had air conditioning or some some
48:07
Speaker 4: modicum of power right from the motor. But in the end, like, yeah,
48:13
Speaker 4: those are the those are the experiences that make the
48:15
Speaker 4: whole Those.
48:16
Speaker 1: Are now those are now translated into memories that you'll
48:18
Speaker 1: exactly take with you for the rest of your life.
48:21
Speaker 1: And it's the reason why you brought your land over
48:23
Speaker 1: back with you, just like the guy in the blueberry field.
48:26
Speaker 4: We couldn't have left it there.
48:27
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, you.
48:28
Speaker 2: Know, personalities right, so that you name them yes, well,
48:34
Speaker 2: Ralph was the series.
48:36
Speaker 1: I've never named a car. I should probably think about that.
48:39
Speaker 4: Ours is unironically named Toto after well a the song.
48:44
Speaker 2: After Wolf the managing director of the AMJ patonas f
48:47
Speaker 2: one team.
48:47
Speaker 4: Know the the eighties pop rock band, and everyone knows that.
48:53
Speaker 4: Everyone knows the song.
48:54
Speaker 1: But then also you got to sing it for us?
48:57
Speaker 4: Yeah, right, you don't want me to do that.
48:59
Speaker 3: Uh?
49:00
Speaker 4: You know the little Dog in Wizard of Oz, right, so,
49:03
Speaker 4: you know, pulls pulls back the curtain on what's going
49:06
Speaker 4: on in real life, right, you know that land River
49:09
Speaker 4: helped us pull back the curtain on life and you know,
49:11
Speaker 4: sort of have those experiences that we always wanted to have.
49:14
Speaker 2: Yeah, I just thought about your next book. You know,
49:16
Speaker 2: there's like this zen and art of motorcycle maintenance, right,
49:20
Speaker 2: there's like a zen and art of traveling in a
49:22
Speaker 2: land Rover that just makes it a little bit more special.
49:25
Speaker 2: You know, I'm hearing you guys talk about all these things,
49:29
Speaker 2: and I'm like, damn, I've gone soft, Like that is
49:33
Speaker 2: that is what is occurring to me right now.
49:35
Speaker 1: But that there's also nothing wrong with that either, And
49:37
Speaker 1: I think that that's one of the problems that the
49:40
Speaker 1: overland community can have is that people will project that
49:44
Speaker 1: this is the experience that works best for me, it
49:47
Speaker 1: should then work best for everyone else. And I'm going
49:50
Speaker 1: to criticize if someone else decides to travel in a
49:53
Speaker 1: different way. I think it's just try different things. Try
49:57
Speaker 1: driving a land Rover and see how you like it.
49:59
Speaker 1: If you don't like it, no big deal, Like it's
50:01
Speaker 1: you don't have to do that, but I happen to
50:03
Speaker 1: like it.
50:04
Speaker 2: What do you think Laura would do if I came
50:05
Speaker 2: home with a land Rover.
50:08
Speaker 1: I think she would be completely unsurprised. I don't think
50:12
Speaker 1: she'd be unsurprised. I don't think she would care.
50:15
Speaker 2: I don't think she'd go in.
50:16
Speaker 3: It depends on what you make you do with it.
50:18
Speaker 2: I'm not saying I'm to clarify. I'm not saying this like, oh,
50:22
Speaker 2: she's prissy or whatever. But she's just highly practical as
50:25
Speaker 2: a person.
50:25
Speaker 1: Of course, But she also knows you and loves you
50:28
Speaker 1: just the way you are, and knows that you're going
50:29
Speaker 1: to do stupid things like bring home a like go
50:32
Speaker 1: find Ralph and buy him back.
50:34
Speaker 3: Oh I would love to do that.
50:36
Speaker 1: But I could see that happening, and I think she again,
50:39
Speaker 1: she would be like, of course, that's what Matt did,
50:40
Speaker 1: is he went and found the car that he fell
50:43
Speaker 1: in love with and bought it back.
50:45
Speaker 4: That's good.
50:46
Speaker 1: So for the modification thing, from my perspective, you know,
50:50
Speaker 1: we have this gluttony of opportunity to modify vehicles as
50:53
Speaker 1: a business. I have just simply not found something that
50:57
Speaker 1: I want to do to the one ten. The only
50:59
Speaker 1: thing I've thought of out is I would like to
51:02
Speaker 1: put in a drawer system that takes up that bed
51:06
Speaker 1: and makes it makes the entire floor than the same height,
51:09
Speaker 1: where the wheel wells are the same height as the drawer.
51:12
Speaker 1: You know, it all becomes this one big flat floor flat.
51:17
Speaker 4: We had a drawer like that in ours.
51:18
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I'd like, I think in the very front,
51:20
Speaker 1: I would want it to be a door that popped
51:23
Speaker 1: open or a little little cubby that popped open, and
51:26
Speaker 1: that I want the back to have two drawers, so
51:29
Speaker 1: that way there was a bit of security in the
51:31
Speaker 1: vehicle because it's all the soft top. And it would
51:33
Speaker 1: also get some stuff out of the dust a little bit,
51:36
Speaker 1: which is also another thing that kind of comes along
51:38
Speaker 1: with it. I did upgrade the seats to I think
51:42
Speaker 1: they're twenty sixteen vintage X More seats. They're actually factory
51:48
Speaker 1: land Rover seats.
51:49
Speaker 3: That are They're very good.
51:52
Speaker 1: It's quite good. And it has heated elements in it,
51:55
Speaker 1: because it's very difficult to heat this heat any but
52:00
Speaker 1: it's surprising. Yes, it is a smattering of hot and
52:06
Speaker 1: cold from all kinds of different directions. Yes, and they
52:09
Speaker 1: swirl about. But I find that like being able to
52:12
Speaker 1: turn on it's cold and Prescott. I mean this morning
52:14
Speaker 1: it was twenty degrees or so. Being able to turn
52:17
Speaker 1: on a heated seat in a Defender one ten is
52:19
Speaker 1: like this very nice addition, but it's still a factory seat.
52:23
Speaker 1: Everything slides and works properly, and so that was one
52:27
Speaker 1: little modification that I made. But I really don't think
52:30
Speaker 1: that it's a good idea to do much until you
52:33
Speaker 1: absolutely find that you need it. I think I've thought
52:35
Speaker 1: about putting in a Detroit locker in the rear axle,
52:39
Speaker 1: and that is something that I may still do because
52:41
Speaker 1: I actually think that would help the vehicle settle it
52:44
Speaker 1: down off road, because I do take it on more
52:47
Speaker 1: challenging terrain. But I just don't think that there's a
52:50
Speaker 1: whole lot of modifications that are an advantage. You used
52:53
Speaker 1: to see these three link systems and these really elaborate suspensions.
52:57
Speaker 2: Those more like recreational off roads.
52:59
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I don't think any of that is suitable
53:01
Speaker 1: for overlanding. One of the things I learned, and this
53:04
Speaker 1: is one of the points that I wanted to make
53:06
Speaker 1: towards the end of the podcast, was one of the
53:08
Speaker 1: best impressions that I had around Defenders was when I
53:12
Speaker 1: was in the UK, I purposefully made a trip to
53:15
Speaker 1: go to Foley's. I don't know if you've ever done that.
53:17
Speaker 3: I've been so funny.
53:18
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, So I don't even know what Foley's role
53:21
Speaker 1: is still, or if they even still set up Defenders
53:24
Speaker 1: to travel Africa. But this company specialized in a couple's
53:29
Speaker 1: retiring or a couple's going to take some time off,
53:32
Speaker 1: and they go to Folies and they would set up
53:35
Speaker 1: there and they had a bunch of them. They had
53:37
Speaker 1: two thousand and seven three hundred TDI the last year
53:40
Speaker 1: they had a bunch of them, or maybe ninety seven,
53:42
Speaker 1: I don't know it was the last year or the
53:44
Speaker 1: three hundred TDI.
53:45
Speaker 3: The military kept TDI going for a long time, so
53:48
Speaker 3: it could well be in the TDI the British Militar. Yeah,
53:51
Speaker 3: it was.
53:51
Speaker 2: It specialized because now that you remember it, I think
53:53
Speaker 2: Christian and I partied with those guys at Aubentyer and
53:55
Speaker 2: al Raat.
53:56
Speaker 1: Did you mentioned that? And I wrote in one of
53:59
Speaker 1: those it was whatever the last year of the three
54:01
Speaker 1: hundred TDI is, they bought everyone that they could, and
54:04
Speaker 1: they had them all in a barn and you could
54:06
Speaker 1: go into Folies and you could say, I want to
54:08
Speaker 1: drive to Cape Town, and they had their Cape Town
54:10
Speaker 1: spec and they would heavily discourage people from doing anything.
54:14
Speaker 1: But whatever their recommendation was, because these vehicles consistently made it.
54:19
Speaker 1: They would basically add the high cap spring set to
54:22
Speaker 1: the rear with a factory coil inside the other coil
54:25
Speaker 1: they would maybe go with a factory spring that was
54:27
Speaker 1: a little taller, a slightly taller tire, and they had
54:31
Speaker 1: this way of kind of bulletproofing the one ten for
54:34
Speaker 1: crossing Africa. But I have the whole list of the
54:37
Speaker 1: Folies set up for traveling Africa, and I'm going to
54:40
Speaker 1: try to post that to this podcast because it was
54:43
Speaker 1: I found it so fascinating. I mean, there was an
54:45
Speaker 1: entire team of people. It was their job to build
54:48
Speaker 1: one tens to go across the Silk Road or down
54:51
Speaker 1: the length of Africa. And they had a way that worked,
54:54
Speaker 1: and it was incredible the number of vehicles that reliably
54:57
Speaker 1: made it one way. Somebody else would fly down and
54:59
Speaker 1: buy it and dry it back the other direction. And
55:01
Speaker 1: they did not modify the cars. They did little enhancements
55:05
Speaker 1: using factory components, and they reliably drove the length of Africa.
55:09
Speaker 4: I think that's the right approach because the car is
55:11
Speaker 4: so simple. There's a gigantic aftermarket for defenders in terms
55:14
Speaker 4: of modification and you know, all different kinds of things
55:17
Speaker 4: you can do to the vehicle. But for us, the
55:19
Speaker 4: modic modifications that we've done have been these little things. Right,
55:23
Speaker 4: So x more seats redid all of the bushings with
55:26
Speaker 4: poly poly bushings, right, especially in the link for the
55:31
Speaker 4: rear axle. Right, there's that big yeah, that big boot
55:33
Speaker 4: bushing that locates the axle. Those things transform the vehicles
55:38
Speaker 4: in terms of it's on road handling, in terms of
55:40
Speaker 4: its you know, traction off road. It's it's little stuff
55:43
Speaker 4: like that that we have a like I bought an
55:46
Speaker 4: improved windscreen washer, because you know, the little squirters for
55:49
Speaker 4: the windshield washer for the windshield are terrible, right, but
55:52
Speaker 4: you can buy these little aftermarket things that just make
55:55
Speaker 4: your life like so much better.
55:57
Speaker 1: You know those your windchel washer thing works?
55:59
Speaker 3: Yeah?
56:00
Speaker 4: Actually, yeah, the one in the back too. But yeah,
56:03
Speaker 4: so like what else? Really, really high quality shock absorbers
56:07
Speaker 4: make a world of difference on these cars. You know,
56:09
Speaker 4: a bill Stein or a ye, that's what's on this
56:12
Speaker 4: or you know a Coney right, like, make a huge
56:16
Speaker 4: difference in their ride quality. For the older defenders. Upgrading
56:20
Speaker 4: the front brakes to the sort of later model with
56:24
Speaker 4: the two piston and the vented discs go a long way,
56:27
Speaker 4: because braking is more of a suggestion in these things
56:29
Speaker 4: than you know, any kind of.
56:31
Speaker 1: It reminds me of when I when I used to
56:33
Speaker 1: ride the ural cycle or a motorcycle. So when you
56:36
Speaker 1: would ride or ural, if you accelerated, you had to
56:39
Speaker 1: countersteer left because there would be dragged in the cart
56:42
Speaker 1: and the thing would turn this way, and if you
56:44
Speaker 1: hit the brakes, the cart would try to pass. The
56:46
Speaker 1: motorcycles you get countersteer right, And that's the same thing
56:49
Speaker 1: when I hit the brakes on the one ten it's
56:52
Speaker 1: it could go right, it could go left, it could
56:54
Speaker 1: slow down. It's kind of wherever it gets it includes
56:58
Speaker 1: a bonus lane change at the same time, is breaking.
57:00
Speaker 2: I don't have that problem with my GA Wagon.
57:03
Speaker 4: But they can. You know, they can break.
57:04
Speaker 1: Well.
57:06
Speaker 4: You know, it's a light vehicle, right, I mean the
57:08
Speaker 4: body is all aluminum. When you look at it, it's
57:11
Speaker 4: like it's lighter than they look.
57:13
Speaker 2: Right.
57:13
Speaker 4: Oh, yeah, so they can with good adjustment and like
57:18
Speaker 4: high quality parts, like maybe an upgrade to event a
57:21
Speaker 4: disc and from the solid disc models, you can get
57:24
Speaker 4: them to break really well. So those are the kinds
57:26
Speaker 4: of modifications, right.
57:27
Speaker 3: Yeah, the events of disc is a good idea, especially
57:29
Speaker 3: if you're going to be doing alpine driving, you know,
57:33
Speaker 3: mountain passes, and.
57:34
Speaker 4: If you've added weight, if you add a lot of
57:35
Speaker 4: weight to your.
57:36
Speaker 3: Build, well, if you're over landing, you've probably got to
57:39
Speaker 3: be pretty heavy. We've had it in the past and
57:42
Speaker 3: across the highest across the Andes from Argentina. It's's Columbia.
57:46
Speaker 3: We did the highest pass in Columbia without breaks because
57:50
Speaker 3: the brakes are just gone. You can actually break the
57:52
Speaker 3: disc with your finger. It was that bad. Because it's breaks.
57:56
Speaker 3: I mean, the andes just so terrible. But that's when
57:58
Speaker 3: the lewrange came in about like my defender. I tried
58:02
Speaker 3: it with the dodge the other day they're doing with
58:04
Speaker 3: the Mountain pastime to like it and with a defender,
58:07
Speaker 3: I just pop it in a low range and I'm
58:09
Speaker 3: good and and you like you try to go around
58:12
Speaker 3: the corner and the thing starts jumping in the front.
58:14
Speaker 3: I think it just automatically locks. Yeah, but yeah, who
58:19
Speaker 3: need when you got low range?
58:20
Speaker 1: Yeah, and then the handbrake out and then a handbreak.
58:22
Speaker 3: Your handbrake works. My handbrake hasn't worked. I had. I
58:28
Speaker 3: had a transfer box league for the last six years,
58:32
Speaker 3: like literally just I've tried everything to fix it. Yeah,
58:35
Speaker 3: I literally just once every couple of weeks, I just
58:38
Speaker 3: get under there with the seventy five W ninety I
58:40
Speaker 3: have with my own special little filler. I can do
58:42
Speaker 3: with this job with my eyes closed to pop it up.
58:44
Speaker 2: If I remember right on this series, they had a
58:46
Speaker 2: little access panel between the seats and you could like
58:48
Speaker 2: put gearbox oil and as.
58:50
Speaker 3: You went down the road you could yeah, I stopped
58:55
Speaker 3: was heading off for a huge journey. The one that
58:58
Speaker 3: I drove around South Africa, the low range. I was
59:00
Speaker 3: showing a friend of mine how the low range works
59:02
Speaker 3: and got locked in low range to get out. So
59:04
Speaker 3: my brother in law is a mechanic, He's like, well,
59:06
Speaker 3: let's have a look, and he opens up the inspection
59:09
Speaker 3: hatch and goes he's got a bolt in his hand
59:11
Speaker 3: because I really hope I don't drop this, and what
59:12
Speaker 3: does he do? Killed him? Luckily, it was just small
59:19
Speaker 3: enough that when we drained the world a puffed time.
59:21
Speaker 2: Oh wow wow.
59:23
Speaker 1: Well we're getting close to the end of the podcast.
59:25
Speaker 1: But I think for those that are listening, the takeaway
59:28
Speaker 1: is people are going to tell you not to buy
59:32
Speaker 1: a Defender one ten, they are probably going to be
59:34
Speaker 1: people who have never owned one and most likely never
59:37
Speaker 1: driven one. So it's just like when someone tells you
59:40
Speaker 1: don't go to Nicaragua, I can just about guarantee it
59:45
Speaker 1: that they're a person who has never been there, because
59:49
Speaker 1: the reality is is that every experience has all of
59:52
Speaker 1: these joys that can bring to us, and the Defenders
59:54
Speaker 1: are are no different. And they actually are very well
59:57
Speaker 1: suited in certain ways to overland trout and because they
1:00:01
Speaker 1: are a little less reliable. You actually have more of
1:00:04
Speaker 1: an adventure by the time that you get to the
1:00:06
Speaker 1: other end. They don't need a lot of modification there.
1:00:10
Speaker 1: If you try to buy a Defender in the United States,
1:00:13
Speaker 1: it's expensive. If you try to buy one in South Africa,
1:00:15
Speaker 1: it's not quite as expensive.
1:00:17
Speaker 3: So they are.
1:00:18
Speaker 1: Available out there. Consider buying one in another country and
1:00:21
Speaker 1: getting it registered there and then driving it from that
1:00:24
Speaker 1: point on. You don't have to bring them to the US.
1:00:25
Speaker 1: You don't even have to buy them in the US
1:00:27
Speaker 1: to the beginning to begin with. So if you've always
1:00:29
Speaker 1: wanted a Defender, look in other markets. You might be
1:00:32
Speaker 1: surprised what you find in left hand drive in Germany
1:00:35
Speaker 1: that could be affordable, or or in.
1:00:37
Speaker 2: Portugal or something. You could probably buy something in Europe,
1:00:42
Speaker 2: go on a lovely holiday, take it to Morocco, explore travel,
1:00:47
Speaker 2: have some adventures, and then if you don't fall madly
1:00:50
Speaker 2: in love with it, ship it back and sell it
1:00:51
Speaker 2: and pay for the trip exactly exactly.
1:00:53
Speaker 3: Would leave it there, or just fly and drive into
1:00:56
Speaker 3: Age to bring it back. I think the thing with
1:00:58
Speaker 3: defend their ownership is basually I know a few people
1:01:02
Speaker 3: who are dying to get their hands on a Defender
1:01:04
Speaker 3: and I'm like, have you driven one? And like no, no, no, no,
1:01:07
Speaker 3: Well before you hand over the how many grand spend
1:01:10
Speaker 3: some time with a vehicle drive? But the important thing
1:01:13
Speaker 3: I think with the Classic Defend is that you have
1:01:15
Speaker 3: to change your mindset of what this vehicle is. It's
1:01:18
Speaker 3: a military, agricultural vehicle.
1:01:20
Speaker 1: It's attracted, it was meant to be a tractor for
1:01:23
Speaker 1: the farm.
1:01:23
Speaker 3: You can't get in it and expect it to be
1:01:26
Speaker 3: a modern vehicle. It is going to be uncomfortable, it
1:01:29
Speaker 3: is going to be loud, it is going to be noisy,
1:01:31
Speaker 3: but it is also going to be one of the
1:01:32
Speaker 3: greatest vehicles you've ever driven a lot for sure, and
1:01:34
Speaker 3: it's going to give you the fizz.
1:01:36
Speaker 1: It's all about the fizz.
1:01:37
Speaker 3: It's all about the fizz in.
1:01:39
Speaker 4: Mine puts a smile on my face every day and
1:01:41
Speaker 4: I drive it pretty much on the daily, which is
1:01:43
Speaker 4: another thing with Classic Defenders. They need to be driven.
1:01:47
Speaker 4: Like any classic car, right, they need to be maintained,
1:01:49
Speaker 4: they need to be driven, And that's also part of
1:01:51
Speaker 4: being clear eyed about approaching a car like this. And
1:01:54
Speaker 4: I feel like we've talked about a lot of romantic
1:01:57
Speaker 4: things today regarding this vehicle. But this is his nay,
1:02:00
Speaker 4: I know literally, you know, we give them names, right,
1:02:06
Speaker 4: you know, and it is you know, if you come
1:02:09
Speaker 4: into it with with that, with that, like Graham is saying,
1:02:12
Speaker 4: sort of the understanding like what it is and what
1:02:14
Speaker 4: it does, then yeah, you'll have an amazing relationship.
1:02:17
Speaker 3: With Don't compare it to a highlights, don't compare it
1:02:21
Speaker 3: to it, don't compare it to it's not It's not
1:02:23
Speaker 3: any of those things. It is its own thing. My
1:02:26
Speaker 3: wife likes to think say that mi Andy is the
1:02:28
Speaker 3: other woman in my life. We've traveled so forward. It
1:02:33
Speaker 3: has always gotten me where I'm going. You know, it
1:02:37
Speaker 3: might stutter, it might do this, it might do that.
1:02:40
Speaker 3: It's taught me so much about maintenance and preparation, and
1:02:45
Speaker 3: you know, it is a relationship that I have with
1:02:47
Speaker 3: this that I can't I would love to be buried
1:02:51
Speaker 3: in it if they could make a big enough hole
1:02:54
Speaker 3: and if they could rip it out of Louisa's hands.
1:02:57
Speaker 3: But I love this thing. But I also understand that
1:02:59
Speaker 3: it's not my Volver or when I used to have Evolver,
1:03:02
Speaker 3: and it's not this vehicle that vehicle, and not just
1:03:05
Speaker 3: doing understanding that about them. It makes it a lot
1:03:08
Speaker 3: easier for people to accept what they were what they are.
1:03:11
Speaker 3: So I'd suggest if anyone's actually looking to buy a
1:03:13
Speaker 3: classic land Rover is find one, rent one. It's going
1:03:17
Speaker 3: to be very expensive, or borrow one, or but get
1:03:21
Speaker 3: yourself behind the wheel and use it for mixed activities
1:03:24
Speaker 3: and actually you get to know the thing and manage
1:03:28
Speaker 3: your expectations and at the end of it, I can
1:03:31
Speaker 3: guarantee one thing though, no matter what the situation is,
1:03:34
Speaker 3: what you do with it. You know, you're going to
1:03:37
Speaker 3: go out into the mountains, you're going to start your campfire,
1:03:38
Speaker 3: and you're not going to you might initially face the sunset,
1:03:42
Speaker 3: but then you're going to turn and you're going to
1:03:44
Speaker 3: sit in your chair and you're going to have your
1:03:45
Speaker 3: whatever in your hand, and you're going to be admiring
1:03:47
Speaker 3: the vehicle. And I'd still find after all these years,
1:03:51
Speaker 3: I can sit there at the end of a long,
1:03:53
Speaker 3: tough day and I'll just sit there and I'll just
1:03:55
Speaker 3: look at it. Yeah, it's something about it.
1:03:57
Speaker 1: Yeah, when we buy a land Rover, we're not buying
1:04:00
Speaker 1: the best overland vehicle. We're buying the one that guarantees adventure.
1:04:04
Speaker 1: So think about that when you start to look at
1:04:06
Speaker 1: a purchase. So any thoughts from you, Matt wrap things.
1:04:09
Speaker 2: Up, happy with my German stuff.
1:04:11
Speaker 1: But thank you for being the voice of reason. Yes,
1:04:14
Speaker 1: you have Steve talking about being clear eyed, which is
1:04:16
Speaker 1: a good idea, and then we have the ziggem and
1:04:19
Speaker 1: Voice of Reason with us on this podcast as well.
1:04:21
Speaker 3: Yeah.
1:04:22
Speaker 2: Yeah, basically yeah, I just like nice emotional chet guys.
1:04:25
Speaker 1: But you need to kiss your g wagon more.
1:04:29
Speaker 2: Matt just works and I don't have a fancy one
1:04:31
Speaker 2: by the way, it doesn't even have a C like.
1:04:33
Speaker 2: It is the spiritual equivalent in g wagon world of
1:04:36
Speaker 2: a defender. Yeah, no question, no question, fll up windows
1:04:39
Speaker 2: and all of that stuff.
1:04:40
Speaker 1: Yeah, all those things. Thank you guys so much for
1:04:43
Speaker 1: being on the podcast. Thank you all for listening. Take
1:04:46
Speaker 1: a drive and a defender, like Graham says, and see
1:04:49
Speaker 1: where it takes you. Well, thank you all for listening,
1:04:52
Speaker 1: and we'll talk to you next time.