Just kind of wanted to take the pulse on the Disco and see what you all think this truck might look like from a resale/appeal standpoint 5-, 10-, 20-years from now. Think it’ll go the way of a collector and become an old Defender or vintage G-wagon? Or do you think it’ll always be relegated to the $5K, clapped out, Craigslist special with an occasional $15K gem mixed in?

 

Given they have a solid fan base, that, at least here is SoCal I see expanding into younger people and old alike as well I think they will maintain or go up given the trucks condition. Clapped out will always be clapped out prices given the cost will go up over time to keep them in working order. The rares will go up in value dissproporianally to the regular trucks. Prices will adjust with the overall market which looks like it will stay insane for a while.

So far the non Disco or future Disco people I interact with are shocked at how little they cost, and they love them even though they dont have one and may never have one.

Examples will go collector, but as with any truck there will be enough beaters out there where the prices will stay in check. I think they may always be outpriced by the Defenders and RRC (good condition and resto).

Hopefully it will be another 10 years or more, after I get some other land rovers I will want to get some more Discos to hedge against rarity and availability, and I like them cheap and fun.

I think another question that follows though, is, do you even want them to go up in value? So long as I am not losing all my money at new car rates I would be more than happy with the prices staying or keeping up with inflation. (Selfish, but I would like to be able to still afford/use them in 20 years)

As far as appeal goes that is going to stay. The design and lines are close to timeless and the aesthetic will hold for a very long time.

 

If there was one Discovery left on earth, just one, then MAYBE there could be a transaction where the seller could get NAS Defender money. It would be great to be wrong about this but the when you think about it the Defender is extremely rare position not only among Land Rover/Range Rover models but other manufacturers as well. Only thing that comes close are FJ40’s.

I didn’t even see an increase in asking price for Discos at the height of the recent used market frenzy.

 

There are just too many of them to ever become valuable. A true pristine original survivor may bring current NAS money 20-30 years from now. It's a bit baffling honestly because they are such great rigs once you sort them out. There are plenty of them still driving around with 170K plus miles so it's not like they are catastrophically unreliable. I bought mine knowing the engine was going to need a rebuild. The body was in great shape as well as the interior and not a spec of rust. Before a lift kit I'll have about $7,500.00 in it which is way less than a 300k mile clapped out Land Cruiser sells for. Mine is much nicer, has more creature comforts, just as good off road in stock form, and has a brand new engine.

I don't get why NAS defenders are worth so much. The only real upside to them over a Discovery is that some of them were soft top. While that's great for beach town cruising or California life, the hard top Discovery is much better to live with. While it's sad to see so many of them getting parted out, it does make keeping the ones that are cherished on the road. The vast pool of knowledge for these things make them pretty straight forward to troubleshoot and repair. They also fall into a small corner of the market. They make great over land to moderate trail vehicles when stock or with a small lift but so do more modern vehicles. Where a solid front axle is great for rock crawling, it's not great or really needed for an over land trail vehicle. For the hard core rock crawling crowd the Discovery isn't great either. The suspension setup that makes them great on the road limits travel. The wheel base is on the short side and the narrow width makes them tippy To get the flex of an XJ with a $1,200.00 lift kit you have to spend $6500 on the discovery.

I ended up with mine because that narrow middle ground is where I wanted to be. Better road manors than an XJ or Wrangler, more off road capable than an IFS vehicle, and something you don't see every day. There is only one spot near by to off road and the reality is I should be able to tackle 95% of the trails with a 2" lift. Sure I will avoid the one trail where a more serious rock crawler is required but I'd rather have a more challenging rig on the rest of the trails than one capable enough to tackle the difficult trail thus turning the rest into super easy ones.

 

“I don't get why NAS defenders are worth so much. “

scarcity

 

There’s more to it than scarcity. I would say that my P38 is more scarce but would probably not get 10% of what a similar year/condition would get.

 

There's far too many of them to ever be a collector's car. Maybe one day enough will disappear that they might be worth a little more but unless you have something like a Kalahari or another special edition, the run of the mill D2 will never really be worth defender money. Just like grey market defenders aren't worth as much as NAS ones. There's tons of ROW defenders out there compared to NAS. There's only something like 500 NAS 110s and if you're in CA, that's a big selling point to buy an NAS unit vs grey market because you can reg them here without headache. At least there's some pathways to get a ROW defender registered here now but its very costly. Ask me how I know.

 

4th owner, though the 3rd kinda doesn’t count as he was my LR mechanic. My ‘00 Disco 2 has 299K on it and as my wife says, it’s my last vehicle. It does exactly what I want, 20% off road, 80% daily driver. Runs great (new AB long block 20K ago), drives great and doesn’t look like a new Discovery/Kia/Hyundai/Chevy.
I’ll let you know the value in 20+ years. 😉

 

NAS Defenders sold in US 3222

P38 Range Rovers sold in US 46603

1346% more P38s

Scarcity.

AND 1,000,000% cooler than anything Rover ever sold in the US

 

Frank I’m sure your numbers are correct, but I suspect that most of the Defenders are still in service and most of the P38’s are not.