Thread: Introduction + my range rover family history

Hi all, my name is Niall, i was born in london, then moved to Ireland. And then Brisbane about 10 years ago, my dad has always been a range rover fanatic, but also a fan of drag racing and building quick street cars.

Heres a pic of one of his first range rovers in London in the early 80's i think it started off as yellow, he painted it white and chromed the bumpers. stock 3.5 and 4 speed manual. Id love to own that car right now

please forgive img quality, they are pictures of pictures




After selling the white one owning a couple more 2 doors he bought the car pictured here as a stock 3.5 manual, it was blue in colour. Fitted a second hand 350ci chevy mated to the stock gearbox. had alot of problems with broken front axels and that engine ultimately failed too.

then went all out, resprayed it metallic red, got a matching vinyl roof, interior from an 84 vogue i think, along with dash, loom etc. The only downside was the seats didnt fold forward so we had to climb in the back as kids !

Realising he wasnt doing much offroading in west london, he decided to can the 4WD, so the new setup was well built 350ci chevy, matched to a built th400 auto and the rear end was a 4 linked ford 9 inch, locker etc. The motor made about 450hp and had a single nitrous kit with 150hp jets. He would run regularly at Santa Pod when we were kids, with full interior, spare wheel etc, it woudl run consistent 12 sec 1/4 miles and with a best of 11.96 @ 126mph

It stopped well with AP racing front brakes, the wheels were custom by compomotive,16x9 with range rover pattern on the front and ford stud pattern on the rear

As kids we thought it was the best car ever and i have been in love with range rovers ever since and haunted by the idea of a quick street range rover.





Those pics were taken in rural ireland in around 2000, It was suffering badly from rust due to where we lived and after 20 years of range rovers the old man wanted a break, the car was stripped, sad for all of us and the parts fitted to a ford sierra, i was able to keep a few parts that didnt suit the sierra which i still have today.


About 6 years ago, me, my brother and 2 best friends got really into camping and beach driving we all went through a number of different cars, suzuki sierras, hiluxs etc, i even had a Baja bug

Then 3 of us decided to split everythign 3 ways and get into a range rover, it had to be 2 door and a motor more powerfull than stock. this 76 showed up on ebay with a 302ci windsor and a stock manual . we bought it sight unseen and the guy delivered it. Heres an early pic of my very young girlfriend learnign to drive manual in it.


We did a camping trip to stradbroke island in it, had a blast, but smashed the spider gears in the front diff, we were able to remove axels etc and drive home in 2wd though




we did some upgrades, hers brakes and shocks


resprayed it black and got windows tinted


we fitted 33inch muds, ditched teh bullbar for stock and added KC lights


Then it got a hit up the back and was deemed a right off, it did suffer from rust so we bought it back off insurance to strip for parts.

Then picked up this sad looking range rover ute conversion


it is rust free and quite straight though


painted it black and started rebuilding







We are going to follow in the old mans footsteps and build a quick street and drag 2 door RR, specifically for 1/8 mile at the track near my place. initially we are going to turbo the windsor and keep the 4wd and 4 speed manual, then move to an auto, 9 inch, 2wd and either a BBC or turbod LS2

Awesome