Good Day-

I am in the middle of a purchase of a 1987 Defender 90 Panoramic with 69K orig miles and wanted to check in with the experts on the forum. This vehicle is dream car of mine so just want to make sure I'm making the right decisions etc.

The Defender will be custom built with new interior, wheels and tires, a/c, V8, engine swap to automatic, and paint. Question is priced at 35K is this a good deal, bad deal, in the middle? It's difficult to decipher with all the variations out there.

Any input would be greatly appreciated.

Best Regards,

Eric

 

where are you located?
who's rebuilding the truck?

 

Attempted to send you a PM mailbox could be full!?

 

just made room for you

 

PM Sent..thanks again.

 

Loke drow said it depends on who is building it, also be careful of which side of the pond its being built on. With that many changes it us not likely to make it through customs.

As a Defender owner I can tell you there are a couple good places and a ton of horror stories about others.

 

+1 on ArmyRover's advice if you live here in the USA.

I'm not usually one to advocate another forum, but I'd immediately go to defendersource and check out the thread on legality of import for defenders.

I'm jumping to some conclusions here, but if you're in the USA and the truck is in the uk or elsewhere in Europe, you might want to go with someone who's done this before to act as your logistics point person. I can vouch for "uncle Doug" Crowther of dividing creek imports, who successfully brought in my 109 County.

If I were doing this all again, I'd look for an early trident green 110 in stock form then build it once it got here. Oh wait, I think armyrover has one, if I remember rightly he's put first right of refusal for me to buy the truck from his widow once he dies of old age

In all seriousnous though, once you have your truck, what you want it to be will change. It will always be loud and have a propensity to have cabin leaks during rainstorms. But stuff like cabin comfort can be addressed. I looked for 8 months for a clean, otherwise stock 109 200tdi, found it, bought it and am now thinking of pulling the engine for a Chevy v8 the beauty of the Land Rover series/defender line is the simplicity and tractor-like charm.

 

Great advice! Thank you. The car just arrived in port US, so I won't have to deal with that and then having it built here. Looking at a Chevy V8 swap myself

 

Cool deal!
You're definitely going about this the right way.
There's a vendor on defendersource selling adapters that allow for the lc9 or ls3 with a gm 6 speed auto.
He sells a custom harness with it that allows you to run all the original gauges.
I know that ECR built an ls3 truck for a customer and reported the results were out of this world.

 

I to can vouch for Uncle Doug Crowther, he brought mine in as well

I can't stress enough about doing your due diligence on the shop for the build. There are a lot that seem fantastic but i am constantly amazed they aren't in jail