I drove an older Defender 110 for around 3500 kms on mostly dirt roads in Chile and Argentina, and it had the Td5 engine. While the adventure itself was exhilarating, the drive was definitely the most uncomfortable ride I have ever experienced. I was 15 years younger than today....
Last year, I drove the new Defender for around the same kms in Namibia and South Africa, and it was a noticeably better car in every aspect but mostly the off-road manners, handling and capabilities.

 

The old Defender is a great vehicle, l ran a TD5 for 90,000 miles and nine years.

However it needs constant maintenance and "love" or it will rapidly become a liability. £250,000 is absolutely insane money, it's still an old Defender just with a great big 500bhp V8 that it was never designed to have, and the interior covered in leather trim.

If you want one, go original, you can buy the very best for £30,000 in the U.K. TD5's can now be exported to the USA. lt's as good as the old Defender got.

Or
The Grenadier is basically an old Defender brought up to date.
Buy one of those and save £160,000

 

Daily drove my 110 for years noisy sure, rode like a coil sprung suv, steering was fine brakes did the job and it could cruise 65. It’s an old iconic design I would love one with a 4.2 supercharged not so much the 5.0

oh and if you think it has blind spots I would argue one needs their eyes checked it’s a fish bowl

 

Station Wagon is fine.

However
The hard top (van) version with no rear windows has blind spots for sure.

And so does the soft top version when the canvas is installed.

 

Yes a cargo van style will have blind spots just like any other panel truck. The canvas top one I drove was fine had plastic windows in the top. I thought we were comparing station wagon to station wagon here lol


hopefully I’ll have mine buttoned back up for trail and driver duty again in a month or two

 

By "blind spots" I was referring to two things. First, when you look straight to your left in a new LHD defender, you see out glass. Look straight left in an OG defender, and you see a big piece of plastic. To see left, you have to lean forward and look back a bit. Second, the North American defenders came with flat mirrors that compromised rear visibility (I quickly replaced them with convex mirrors). And of course no "clearsight" back then either. At least this is what I remember from 20 years ago.

These aren't big deals, but I had two minor parking lot incidents during my ownership due to failing to see someone slipping around me. My insurance agent (quite unprofessionally) ripped into me for it, and my response was "have you ever driven one of these!? No? I thought not, so STFU until you have!" OK, I didn't say that last bit, but I thought it! 😄

Then there was the time I nearly backed into a vertical mine shaft. Gives me shivers to this day! Later I saw photos of the aftermath when someone actually did that in a Defender. Yikes!

 

Most of the trucks designed for off road, heavy duty/farm use of the era where not really road cars. Just ended up that way. I kind of sum them up like this; "Tractor with a nicer body." Really if you look at older catalogs of parts for Series Land Rovers, which the Defender is really the Series 4 (Marketing thought a name would be better). They had loads of things like PTO off the transfer case (ever wonder what that big round hole in the, lets call it a bumper, is?), Hookups for farm equipment, capstans for the front. There were items for just military mounts and so on. There was little thought to many things, like seat belts and mirrors. They just added them to meet regulations. If you swapped to the soft top on the Series III, the rear view mirror mount vibrated so bad it was useless, even at idle, aside from not quite sure how it penetrated canvas for the vision thing. The little flaps on the dash, which where there to theoretically let in air. They where there in reality to let in more noise, in case you started to be able to hear things. They also let in dangerous levels of insects, which would enter at very high speed and start pummeling you. Later the Special Vehicles guys, I assume, got the bright idea "let's put some screens on those!" Naturally it was an accessory, so not many had them. You can go on and on. Like to fuel the Aux Fuel Tank, you had to remove the passenger seat bottom and pull the cover forward to access the fuel filler in the cabin!

"F" a ¼ of mil! I really don't think so. My 97 had OBDII electronic control of the V8 and Transmission, which was a ZF (Rocking good tranny). It had Eximoor seats with all kinds of adjustments (except perhaps to lean it back a bit, something to do with a bulkhead stiffener there). Bluetooth for your phone, except nobody could understand a word you said, amp for the rocking loud stereo, which had to be set to "Tsumani," to hear it. Fog lights, clever gauges which sometimes worked along with front and rear locking diffs, which had cleverly unmarked switches. A small badge that proclaimed there was a V8 in it, caused women to swoon at the sight of it. I even had a Borela stainless exhaust. It even had outdoor grade carpet, which was good since you had to take them out after driving in the rain to let them dry off. It did come with a tool kit and an adequately sized battery and alternator and room for another battery, not puddle lights and stupidly colored calipers (looking at you new defender)

 

Hahaha! So true! An entirely amusing post. 😄

I extensively "sound-proofed" my old Defender, including the headliner and the entire interior floor and sides. The transmission tunnel was the worst offender, emitting a howl of the damned from the gates of hell. After adding at least 200 lbs of material, it was notably better at slower speeds, but was still exhausting on the freeway. There's no need for any of that with the new one.