Thread: Oldest Coil Sprung Land Rover

G'day dervish - I've not seen one before '84, but you never know ....

...watching with interest

As far as I know, 1984 - but there are almost certain to be the occasional personal import of earlier ones.

The only pre-Defender coil sprung Landrovers sold in Australia were the V8 and the Isuzu engined variants. The Isuzu engined ones were, I believe, V8 chassis, modified during assembly in Sydney.

The 2.25 and 2.5 petrol and diesel were never sold here, but there are a few about that came in as personal imports, perhaps none of the 2.25 - these were not made for very long anyway.

Worth noting that the 90 did not appear here until well after the introduction of the Defender, and only sporadically until after about 2010.

As far as I know, the models sold were 110 Hardtop, 110 cab/chassis or trayback, 120" cab/chassis or trayback, 110 County wagon, 110 6x6 cab/chassis or trayback. A limited run of 110 dual cab V8s were made for the Bicentennial Authority in 1988.

Except for the County, most were fitted with the Isuzu, and this was the only engine offered in the 6x6.

John

Searching around this morning I found a very thorough resource on the topic:

https://books.google.com.au/books?id...page&q&f=false

It basically reinforces everything JDNSW has said - thanks John - but goes a little further to say that the release date was November 1984.

Now I'll say that my interest has been piqued due to a new acquisition.



If the One Ten release was indeed November 1984, this vehicle would have been brought into the country for the release - possibly making it one of the oldest civilian units around.

As for the military, as usual REMLR has a well researched and documented page:

Project Perentie Trials, Prototype and Development Vehicles - Land Rovers Vehicles - REMLR

Which includes possibly the definitive answer to the question of oldest coil sprung LR, a pre-production 1982 110 brought into the country for military evaluation. Note the presence of a starter crank hole in the bumper in a position to suit the 2.25 family of engines, rather than the hole in the grille surround to suit the V8 - suggesting this might have been a 2.25 litre unit before the 4BD1 was fitted.

That does look as if it is one of the first coil sprung ones sold in Australia. It would be interesting to work out whether it was imported or locally assembled. I'm not sure how you would do this!

John

Originally Posted by JDNSW

That does look as if it is one of the first coil sprung ones sold in Australia. It would be interesting to work out whether it was imported or locally assembled. I'm not sure how you would do this!

John

According to this website the last letter of the VIN indicates the assembly location; in this case, Solihull.

Great sleuthing!

Mine's a Feb '85 model, I know Barney has an '84 V8 model as imported for the navy, but not sure which month.

Yeah. Mine was born in november 1984 and shipped to Australia with 7 similar truck cabs. They were prepped for the Navy by Rolfe Classic in the ACT and put into service as military police vehicles. The purpose of this was for evaluating their suitability for the military's new fleet of vehicles - the perentie project. You can read about them on remlr.

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This is two photos, the one on the left was taken by Bushdriver magazine in 1985
The one on the right I took at Garden Island in 2011, I think.1474277927045.jpg
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