Here we have our 1998 Land Rover Defender 110 SW, for more information please visit www.bettercar.co.uk. I got the year wrong in the video – my apologies.
I hi it’s bradley from better car and today i’m here with an exciting car for me i’m personally a massive rover nut and this is a land rover defender from 1994 so this car is actually as old as i am now this has traveled 110 000 miles in its life which is a lot less than you’d expect from one of these it’s the 2.5 110 so it’s done it’s got 111 brake horsepower
Which is not that much for a car this sort of size but uh it makes for the driving experience being incredibly fun now the routes of the land rover defender actually start in 1948 so the original land rover series one was released after the second world war when uh still was in very short supply so they decided to use aluminium on the outside of the cars which
Actually meant that they didn’t rot quite as badly which is still the case on this car you still have a little bit of bubbling here and there but nowhere near as bad as cars from the 80s that use the same sort of structure and design as these now the defender itself was released in 1983 um the name defender though wasn’t actually used until 1990 so this
Is a as i said a 110 it’s the station wagon version so you get the or the sw as enthusiasts call it so you get the the long bench rear seat in the back plus a row of rear seats as well so it’s a little bit practical uh the driving experience which we’ll come on to later is the best thing about this car and it’s terrible for what it is but it’s such a good
Laugh that i think that i could put up with this car every single day just for the fact that i love driving it let’s move around to the back right then moving around to the back of the land rover defender this is quite a good example of one actually so as i said it’s done 110 000 miles but it’s in fairly good condition it’s got good service history with it
As well there’s a couple of scratches and bits like that that you’d expect from a car that’s been worked for most of its life i’m not too sure exactly where this one came from but it hasn’t got too many rust patches on the body work itself the underside of the car has been checked out and it is completely clear of any sort of structural rust on there you’ve
Got surface rust but again a car like this you’ve got sort of expect a little bit like that it has got the land rover side steps on there as well and you’ve got the lovely big uh off-road tyres on there as well now moving into the back you’ve got a a very rudimentary handle on here and the boot itself the door is quite heavy because you’ve got a massive rear
Tyre on the back there as well so the lights of this are comical by today’s standards so you’ve got you’ve got the individual cluster of light so you’ve got your brake lights there and side lights and your indicators down there and they’re just held in with screws so it’s very simple very back to basics but for land rover enthusiasts and people like myself
I absolutely love the simplicity of this thing now getting into the back itself oh i’ve actually got the original land rover handbook in the back here as well which has got the from 1994 which is great to see this still in the car and shows that the car’s actually been really well looked after now it’s great in here this is the perfect place to stick all of
Your friends if you’re going to be going out on a shoot or something other country related you’ve got you can fit about three people if you’re very very close friends with them on each bench seat back here but obviously the the leg room’s gonna be quite tight in here there’s no sort of safety anything like that you’ve got sliding rear windows in the back
Here and you have got the safari windows up on the top which the new defender has also uh carried that over to the to the new design which is nice to see that carry on let’s move into the back seat right oh using that step to get up oh right back in the back of the land rover defender you can see above my head you’ve got those safari windows as i pointed
Out in the back and this one has actually got a front sunroof in it as well so it’s quite a light and airy car uh the back here is really nothing noteworthy it’s a it’s a 1990s land rover defender so there’s there’s no luxuries in the back here you get three seats but uh you’ve you’ve got a couple of seat belts just tucked back there but they’re they’re not
They’re just lap belts there’s nothing really um safety conscious about this car let’s move into the front seat and then we’ll go out for a little drive right then moving into the front of the land rover defender um you can see from this angle how bare bones and basic this car is you’ve got a an ashtray just on top of the dash which pops out a little bit there
It’s just a it’s not exactly the best build quality in here but these never were then they’re never really made that they are just rugged dependable stuck up in cold weather uh great cars uh the gauges in here i’m pretty sure that i’ve had exactly the same gauges on an old austin maestro of mine so the speedo goes up to 110 but that is incredibly optimistic
So realistically the top speed of this car is probably about 75 and that takes a long time to get there the clock on this one is actually out of an austin montego and your heater controls are just down the side so you’ve got your fan controls just down here and then you have also got your d mist function and bits like that on there but as everybody that has
Ever been in a land rover defender knows the heater is uh pretty much useless i want to be kind to it but it’s it’s not the best in the world you have got a five-speed manual gearbox in this one uh you’ve got rear wash wipe which is actually very very surprising and it does actually work as well you’ve got front you’ve got your horn just on here which sounds
Great it sounds perfect for the type of car it is you’ve got uh front washers on the stalk just here i haven’t got the ignition on so i can’t use that you’ve got a warning down here this is for the diff locks so you you have got a low range gearbox a high range gearbox which it’s in at the moment and you have also got diff locks on there as well which is
Great for getting out of tight spaces but this basically just says don’t ever use it on pavement and only at very very low speeds general feel of the seats in the front here they are very comfortable actually they’re very spongy and soft but they’re not exactly very supportive you’ve got a couple of little switches down here which open up the the front vents
Which i will show on on a little overlay right then let’s get out on the road wait for these guys to pass and off we go noisiest car i’ve ever driven but i’m one of the slowest as well but the experience that makes all the difference you can see that that is your airbag so you just get a cushion on there instead of any sort of airbag there or safety fourth
Gear going up a hill barely creeping above 40 miles an hour these are brilliant steering’s wayward no real feel to it at all and it all of a sudden tightens up but it’s just part of the character of the car things rattling about all over the place all right so getting into a 60 foot hard down it’s 50 55 and 60s it’s not a car that you want to be taking on
The motorways the clutch is actually incredibly heavy it’s not really what you’d expect from a two and a half liter diesel this sort of size but it’s just fun that’s the best thing about it you got the original land rover stereo still just there it doesn’t really work but it’s it’s there that’s the main thing and here we are coming up to our turning so uh
Give the brakes a good test indicators brakes are very spongy but that is just the same as every other defender nothing bad about this one again just all about the experience of this i’d love to take this out off-road but obviously it’s a car for sale we can’t really do that with these there there we go so that was the test drive on the land rover defender
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Transcribed from video
Review and Drive – 1998 LAND ROVER DEFENDER 110 COUNTY SW (BetterCar) By BetterCar
