The team at Bishop+Rook Heritage Defender recently came across a pair of Land Rover Defender 130s and are preparing them for our restoration process.
The door doesn’t actually shut so when you go around right hand corners it gets a bit dangerous but we can fix that i think the latch is broken in this episode of defender rescue andrew’s going to take a pair of defender 130s across the bridge into the field nearby the workshop and walk you through an example of a pre-restoration defender we usually keep a variety
Of donor defenders in stock but in this case it’s an unusual period where we actually have a right-hand drive and a left-hand drive defender 130. i should point out that we don’t have a big production crew when we do these videos we try to keep it really natural and organic definitely not causing traffic jams here it’s bathing season obviously i’m pretty sure
It’s bathing season globally but they’re uh they’re picking up all the bales at the moment and storing them hey guys welcome back to bishop of brook salisbury where i’ve decided to drag this interesting vehicle out for the the video today this is a defender 130. obviously some of you are familiar with this shape of vehicle essentially it’s 20 inches longer than
A 110 and that’s wheelbase not overall vehicle this is not only just a 130 but it’s a 130 high cap and high cap literally just stands for high capacity that means that the rear tub is slightly wider than the rest of the vehicle and slightly deeper and overhangs the chassis by just a bit so it gives it that extra capacity this was um a special vehicles um order
So this is something that somebody would have walked into a dealership and purchased specially this is not something that land rover typically built and had on the showroom floor the reason i decided to bring this one out and we’ve actually got another one is because this kind of vehicle does come through our workshop every now and then not very often as you can
Probably see from all of our website entries that when these vehicles do come up they’re already sold so typically a 130 vehicle does not hang around very long i figured i would do a video on this one before it sold as it is currently potentially available to the right customer this is one of those vehicles that can be driven as it is so i’ve just driven this
Vehicle around and it achieved 70 to 80 miles an hour easily it drives very smoothly it’s got a modern 300 tdr in it with the manual r380 gearbox so it’s the same engine that is in all of the other defenders there’s nothing different about this car at all from the front back so in retrospect this is no different to a 90 or a 110 up to about that point um it was
At that point that the vehicle’s length changed and then the panels are different but the reason i figured i’d show you this one is because they are rare we’ve actually brought this one over from france i say france it’s actually come over from holland although it’s french registered um and this one’s kind of interesting it’s got some quirky bits about it so the
Initial things that we spotted were it must have been worked at some point because it’s got twin shocks set up on the front so that’s kind of cool not something we see it’s also got air suspension and this is air assist opposed to air suspension so there’s a big air bag inside the spring and it does work um as i plugged it straight in and managed to achieve 35
Psi say from the system ignition on yeah i thought that was kind of quirky it’s a five it’s actually a six seat interior including the center seat and i would think that actually you could probably get four across the back um but yeah all the actual geometry of the doors is the same so that is the same door as fitted to a 110 csw the car itself is just very
Very cool if this is something that you’re interested in it’s worth registering some pre-interest as you know we’re all taking orders now into 2023 that vehicles like this do not come up very often there’s a potential that this one is available to the right customer so to register an interest why don’t you get in touch with mike and you never know this could
Be sat in your driveway this year i don’t know why every video turns into that sort of this is for sale thing this is defender we make them nice uh guys i’ve got brain fog today i’m really not not feeling it today trying to do walk around videos on this car i’ve done two takes now can’t can’t quite get the angle that i want um but this this is a 130. simply if
I was going to put this the way my mind is allowing me to think about it today is about the coolest truck that you can get i think guys i’ve given up i’m gonna go and get tom and the other 130 and see if it gives me some inspiration to do something else because i’m not really feeling it i don’t know if this is like a creator’s block i don’t know what is it oh
Writer’s block that’s what people yeah people who write books they get writer’s block don’t they well they sit there for hours doing nothing that is how i’m feeling today so i’m going to go and get tom i’m going to go and get another 130. we’re going to put them next to each other and we’re going to see if we can come up with some interesting content as i’m not
Really feeling it right now but i’ll go and get something i’ll come back and we’ll resume the video tom found tom just like that founder tom two days have passed which means my mind fog is gone and i’ve got two 130s this is quite a rare sight you can let the dog out if you want tom we figured we’d bring both of them out here as this is quite a rare sight
For us to have two of these on site at once obviously pre-restoration that one took a couple of days to get ready so we had to spend some time making sure that that would run properly as it was leaking the diesel yeah just had some issues but it’s now sorted it’s here we’re back in the field outside the workshop so our workshop is part of a 2000-acre estate
I live just there this is the farm yard that we live on and you can just see the top of the workshops over there so it’s probably about 100 meters away turns out after all that i didn’t actually need tom for any mental inspiration i just needed him to drive a car so i figured we’d take the opportunity to come out here and show you them both obviously at the
Moment both of these vehicles are available which is something probably more rare than two 130s in a field to be honest with you so as you can see everest is slightly different not the cars themselves the cars are the same but what this does have is the truck from top on it and you can probably see the difference in capacity of this vehicle it’s got a huge huge
Amount of storage space i would say probably more than any other pickup truck to be honest i don’t know where they’ve all come from but it is massive i mean you could probably fit around 27 golden retrievers in that i would think or if you work by imperial system still in america you could probably fit i’d say four washing machines in there i think it’s it’s
One of those load areas that you could use for all sorts of stuff i think you could probably even stand motorbikes and things up in the back of that to be honest i might even try that so yeah both of them available both of them in one place just about to do some still photos and you can make your minds up yourself whether or not this is the best defender i i
Think it is is that what it’s like in america when you see a sasquatch being all sort of weird and wandering around like that this guy really knows how to get in every shot one of the things to be aware of as a defender owner is that no matter where you go you’re going to capture an audience or just an intriguing vehicle and even if you’re in the middle of a
Field someplace people are going to wander over and want to take a look this holds particularly true for the defender 130 because they were so very special and they just have this iconic uh design to them that will always be timeless always be cool and always be interesting even in the homeland of england where they were built and and worked many of the fields
Old guys still love them um and so this video is really about kind of their donor defender uh process is that they all come into the workshop uh after you know 25 years of use on farms and fields cruising around the motorways etc and it’s our job to figure out you know make sure that it’s export eligible all the paperwork checks out has good history uh and then
Also evaluate it for restoration is to say is this a vehicle that needs a full restoration can we do a preservation series uh project on this or is it more involved and ultimately we need to leave it up to uh the customers to decide um how they want it finished off whether or not they want something that’s factory like or if they want to add a few accessories
And accoutrements to make it more fitting to their taste and lifestyle for these we’ll see we’ve got some ideas in mind but nothing planned so far so stay tuned you
Transcribed from video
Pre-Restoration Land Rover Defender 130's – from Bishop+Rook By Bishop+Rook Heritage Defenders
