Why do we love our discoveries ?

[random]

You know , people never talk about other cars the way Land Rover owners talk about theirs with such affection and - the word love is very bloody common to isn't it !

It's a classic but there is something very unique about them isn't there , I love mine . I love it's feel , the way it handles , the bite from the constant awd , the way it ambles along so steadily , full of character.
Had a lot of cars but nothings ever felt like the rover except - the Jag ! The only other car I've ever owned that had it ! I had and 83xjs6 for awhile , what a beautiful and unique car but unfortunately pretty well useless for anything other than cruising about and listening to great cd's though so in the end as painful as it was , it had to go.
Then I bought another Jackaroo , it was a good old car , tough as nails , great little workhorse , but I missed my Jag sooo much and just found myself thinking none stop , if only I could get a Jag in a 4wd .

Well bugger me , looked about , thought , - ding - of course , get a Landy !
A mate of a mates got one earlier and reckoned it rode as nicely if not better than his bmw and that really got me thinking so in I went.

Today I was beside a defender at the servo - again what a classic , the thing just sat there , it almost looked like a person so to speak . We glanced a chuckle to each other .
Even my girls love mine and I'd heard whole families talking like " love " about theirs .
Strange isn't it , don't hear that in many cars .

Cheers

[tomalophicon]

I (and many other nuts) feel the same way about Alfa Romeos (old ones anyway).

[blue_mini]

Dont forget minis either, i cant walk past mine without giving them a quick pat and an apology that theyre not going yet.

[MR LR]

I think it goes for anything that is temperamental and has a personality, most old vehicles are the same, and landies behave like a lot of old vehicles from new. Thats why we love em

[random]

Yeah they are a classic , I think your right about their quirks being part of it.

But yeah there are other cars for sure , my Jag was just the same . I think I'm more thinking Jap , you never hear much emotion about Jap cars do you , those f'n Land Cruisers make me sick , sorry to any Cruiser owners .

Cheers

[tomalophicon]

Jap cars have no soul. In saying that I owned a Daihatsu Feroza for a while which made me very happy :) There was a Feroza wave too :)

[SMASH]

I love my landy because it has personality and all my life I've always had one.
and yeah I think they have more soul than any other car. thats why i love 'em

[bigcarle]

I think it goes for anything that is temperamental and has a personality, most old vehicles are the same, and landies behave like a lot of old vehicles from new. Thats why we love em
as a classic car nut this is the conclusion i come to as well aslo they require a bit of brain power to drive particularly off road.
instead of the brain dead type of car where you hop in, floor the loud pedal the car makes all the decisions for you and you arrive at your destination:wasntme:
with a LR you need preparation and from that it becomes an exercise/adventure/thrill :D:D

[Ivan]

Have driven Landies ever since I got into off roading. When I came back here in 2009 I decided I needed something a bit bigger than my old D1 so I bought a Nissan Patrol. Really nice car, very comfy and big. Only problem was I had absolutely no feeling for it whatsoever!! I just used to get in and drive it and as long as it worked all was OK. Then up comes a D3 at the right price and so I buy it. What a difference, I love this car. I listen to every little squeak and groan and am always poking around to make sure everything is all good. I have also added quite a few modifications that I did not bother to do on the Nissan. I see this car a s a keeper whereas the Nissan I was always looking around for something else.

Ivan

[olbod]

I bought my first landy in 1962. Have owned another 5 since and I love my 92 Disco and would never sell it.
Another thing I also had at the time as a giggle and play thingy was a Suzuki LJ50. I loved it, it had a 3 cylinder 2 stroke engine. I was so impressed that I fitted the little thing out with an extra 10 gallon fuel tank plus jerries and 2nd spare wheel carrier, a box with a few tools and spares, which had to be light.
In 1977 I took off on my own and done a trip which circumnavigated Lake Ayre and bush bashed across the Simpson to the Birdsville track. Then on to the flinders and back up via Innaminka, the dig tree and past Charlieville.
I only had one spot of bother on the whole trip. I was bush bashing east of the Flinders on my way up to find Mount Hopeless when I drove over a Rabbit warren and snapped the front engine mount and dropped the engine onto the front axle. Had to make some bush repairs before I could continue on. Took a day and a half but repair lasted till I arrived home and for sometime after before I got a new engine cross member.
After that I thought that if I wanted a vehicle to drive around the world in, it would be an LJ50 !!!
I took lots of slides which I could convert to pics if anyone is interested in looking at them.
But as I said I love my old Disco and would never part with it.

Cheers.

Robert.

PS: the reason for the trip in the first place was because I had previously read Edward John Eyre's diary where he stood on Mount Hopeless and thought he was stopped by a ring of salt lakes. I had an army survey map that said that the exact location of Mount Hopeless was at that time unknown. I decided that it would be fun to bushbash up the east side of the Flinders to find it, which I did. when I got to the north of the Flinders I figured that the dry watercourses must lead to high ground, so I kept travelling up different courses and eventually saw a tiny speck on the horizon which turned out to be Mount Hopless. I climbed it, added a rock of my own to Edwards pile ( I had carried that rock from my home for just that purpase ) and felt quite smug about the whole thing.
First tho I had wanted to circumnavigate Lake Ayre and check out the Simpson again. I had first bushbashed the Simson in 63.

[xstriple]

Its so heartening to hear these stories re- Disco as I was feeling down in the dumps after getting a '91 and hearing all the bagging on other 4b websites. Bugger em I say! Ive always been into the quirky ( hence Yam xs 750 reference) so I am looking forward with great anticipation to the roads ahead. Cheers. :)

[Pedro_The_Swift]

I went to a Brisbane show in around '89 and there was the D1,,
I'm now on my 3rd D since '97,,
I really cant understand why people buy other cars--

[J.J.]

I'm only new to the wonderful world of the Disco (have always liked the look),I got my D1 two years ago 96 v8 it would have to be the most relaxed drive I have had,even SHMBO likes the ride.I know have my beloved 96 v8 and she know has her D2a TD5 and I think I can honestly say we are done with other cars we will always have a Disco of some sort !! The kids love mum and dads trucks.

[German Grüner]

Back from my vacations, a coworker told me his complaints because the air conditioning from his Honda CRV did not work ,having hot weather.
I am equally angry: after 14 years of traveling together with my Disco, we dump and now she has many more dents than before :-(
But yes, the air conditioning is still working perfectly ;-)

Regards

[gazby]

When you buy something against all good advice and practicality you know it may break you but you just have to have it, I reckon folks that own Discos and other oddball cars are people who buy with their hearts and not their head. I have always had mostly oddball cars, started out with an Austin A40 ute back in 1965, followed by a Morris 1100, then an Austin Healey Sprite, then I crossed the channel and drove a Fiat 2300 for a while, a HK Monaro, XA Falcon V8 panel van, (surfing phase), married and then bought a Datsun 1200, (no money) then a Cortina station wagon (kid phase), a Peugeot 504, an ex army Landrover series 2, that the wife hated, a Toyota Crown wagon, that would not pull the skin off a rice pudding, a Triumph 2500 TC, an E type Jag, an S type Jag, another S type Jag (masochistic stage, owned all 3 at the same time), a Moke Californian 1275 (insanity stage), a Landcruiser BJ 42, a 60 series HJ diesel Landcruiser, that would not pull the skin of that same rice pudding. Then revelation and halleluja, a work mate of mine was selling his 1977 Range Rover Classic, it was 12 years old and had nearly 400,000 on it, but I had a drive and fell in love, that old Rangie took the wife and kids and I on lots of great holidays and adventures for the next 11 years, I pulled the engine out at 650,000 and had it bored .020 over, the crank went back in std, a new cam, fitted gas and a new clutch, it completed just under 900,000 when I sold it to a mate to give to his son as a first car.
This is of course a bit off the subject of why we love our Discos, but when I bought my first Disco, which was a cheap old dog of a thing, I hopped in and drove it and it gave me the same old feeling of comfort and familiarity that I remembered from the Rangie, onto the next Disco now, same model with a lot less K's no rust no cracks and no clatter from the engine, but none the less still lots of work to keep up with the shabbily made bits that fall off or break, but it is more than a car it is a hobby, an old friend, a comfortable ride, and a masterful off road machine, it puts a smile on my face, if I had bought my 4X4 with my head I'm sure it would have been a Tojo because up here in the North it is Toyota country and every body has one, yes the proverbial BUM, but the old '97 Discovery will do me for all the reasons I have just mentioned, I could not make friends with a Cruiser..............................no sir!!

[bigcarle]

I reckon folks that own Discos and other oddball cars are people who buy with their hearts and not their head.
as i have said in a post elsewhere you have to do a bit of thinking to drive a Land Rover product, the same as classic cars, but like the classics the rewards for perseverance are great
yep i reckon that you have to have a particular mind set, as for me i was already gone as i'm into classic cars particularly from the Leyland/BMC range :o;):(

[Spel1]

I like the D1, especially the TDI, as it is low-tech - not too many electronics. High back door for van sized stuff so good for work, for which I use mine every day. Comfortable ride and driving position. Not too hard to work on. Its fairly strong, its old enough that the axles still have decent bearings - unlike the tiny things that Jeep use for instance. Parts are far from rare even for a vehicle that is a couple of decades old. For me its an all round practical vehicle.

[random]

Xstripple maaate, if ya like the car don't worry about em. Everyone looks at my car or notices it, dunno why , yet it's usually the only one amongst the droves of big flash Jap jobs and what have you in most car parks .Even at Christmas time , everyone was standing out on the balcony and guess what I realized after awhile . Amongst all the flash top dollar sparkling new top shelf Fords and Holdens and Nissan everyone else had parked out there , they were all looking at the 2nd hand Rover. So that just goes to show they might bark about us but eh , when no ones lookin :cool: !!:p

Nahh can't knock the Jap 4wd, they do it all , have all the bells and whistles but eh , they ain't no Rover.

[random]

I went to a Brisbane show in around '89 and there was the D1,,
I'm now on my 3rd D since '97,,
I really cant understand why people buy other cars--

That's funny , me either :cool:

[scarry]

After having Holdens for many yrs,went on a shooting trip with one of my brothers in his D1 in '98,and realised these cars aren't bad.

Dad always had LR's,but they didn't really interest me,particularly as he seemed to spend a lot of time fixing em.Over the yrs he had Series vehicls,RR classic's,rover 75,etc.

That shooting trip it rained,we had heaps of fun,wet black clay is always interesting.

We had our own business which was going well,and SWMBO wanted a car with 7 seats so we could take her parents with us,as they were driving less.Shopped around & eventually ordered one of the first of the D2's in '99.

Sad to see the last holden go,a HSV,as they were great cars.

Bought the last D2 in '04,which was a great car,we looked at other brands,but nothing else ticked all the boxes.

Hunted around the last six months to replace the D2a,couldn't find anything else that ticked all the boxes,although the Paj came close

Ended up with the D4

[gavinwibrow]

After having Holdens for many yrs,went on a shooting trip with one of my brothers in his D1 in '98,and realised these cars aren't bad.

Dad always had LR's,but they didn't really interest me,particularly as he seemed to spend a lot of time fixing em.Over the yrs he had Series vehicls,RR classic's,rover 75,etc.

That shooting trip it rained,we had heaps of fun,wet black clay is always interesting.

We had our own business which was going well,and SWMBO wanted a car with 7 seats so we could take her parents with us,as they were driving less.Shopped around & eventually ordered one of the first of the D2's in '99.

Sad to see the last holden go,a HSV,as they were great cars.

Bought the last D2 in '04,which was a great car,we looked at other brands,but nothing else ticked all the boxes.

Hunted around the last six months to replace the D2a,couldn't find anything else that ticked all the boxes,although the Paj came close

Ended up with the D4
Hi Paul - you do have more than 2 sons right? Eldest - not elder and youngest - not younger. GRIN!

[scarry]

Hi Paul - you do have more than 2 sons right? Eldest - not elder and youngest - not younger. GRIN!

Yer no worries RON,i will sort it:D:):):p

Reminds me gotta sort out the sig completely as it is a bit messy:angel:

[random]

Ahh , forgot to mention the diesel. Great little motor , mines alive I'm sure of it. Seems like a person groaning away under the old bonnet.
Had some other diesels , love diesels . Had two Jackaroo diesels too but this one is a very unique character no doubt about it . Economical bugger too, great gearing.

PS , funny I didn't like the diesel at the start , it was so smooth and quiet , nothing like my Jackaroo diesel . But it's really snuck up on me in true Rover form , love it now.

[Fred Nerk]

It is interesting to see how many people here seem to have owned a Jaguar.

I bought a new '98 XJ8. It was the first XJ series Jaguar to have a V8 and it was a great car. It was very expensive to run as it required servicing every 8000km. Servicing was free (included) for the first three years. After that, it was $1000 to $1500 every 4 or 5 months. Tyres were $600-$700 each and "as soft az". Yet it was an eye catching car. Beautiful metallic green (Spruce) with Celtic wheels. After 10 years I had to let it go. I've seen it on the road since and I hope the new owner is happy.


My first Disco was bought for my daughter. A second hand '92 D1 TDi. Stadium seating was a great concept and should be incorporated into the new models. It towed her horses in the float. She loved the car but it eventually needed to be retired and she has a Colorado and it does the job with out the personality. We see the old D1 parked at a golf course fairly regularly. Seems to fit right in there.

There have been numerous other cars yet these (and my VW Eos) were the best loved. I feel the same relationship with my D4 and I have only had it for 2 months.

[random]

Ahh yeah , the Jags , what a car. Mine was only an 83 but what a classic it was. Metallic blue , great cd player , beautiful big 6 , the most beautiful straight 6 I've ever owned or driven.

I'll throw in a pic .

cHEERS