Factory Fresh

Ever wondered what it would be like to drive a new Discovery 2? Dave Phillips turns back the clock nearly two decades to get behind the wheel of a Td 5 with only 8000 miles on the clock

A Discovery 2 Td5 with just 8000 miles... It’s the stuff of dreams, surely? Dave Phillips investigates

It’s the year 2000, and the new millennium hasn’t really brought many changes so far. To ny Blair is still in No 10 Downing Street, and Bill Clinton is hanging on in the White House, although he will be replaced by George W Bush before the year is out. Eminem and Britney Spears are riding high in the music charts both sides of the Atlantic. BMW still owns Land Rover (but is already having talks about selling the company to Fo rd). Meanwhile, in Kings Langley, Hertfordshire, teenager Jason Hollick is about to leave school and start work as an apprentice motor mechanic at a local garage. And in Stroud, Gloucestershire, a man drives away from the town’s main Land Rover dealer in his dream car – a new Discovery 2. The Disco was a car he’d always wanted, ever since its launch two years earlier. He hadn’t been that impressed by the Discovery 1, which had been cobbled together against all odds in 1989 by raiding the Leyland parts bins, but its 1998 successor was a very different car. Sure, it looked very similar, but that was deliberate. Owner BMW believed in evolution rather than revolution, but the similarity was only skin deep. Under the bonnet was the all-new Td5 fivecylinder turbodiesel engine and a host of new electronic gadgets to improve the 4x4’s handling both on- and off-road. And didn’t it look lovely in its gleaming Blenheim Silver paintwork? The new owner was so proud as he drove it home and parked it carefully in his heated garage. Having invested the thick end of £30,000 in his new car, he was determined to look after it. He wanted it to look good in five, ten… maybe 15 years time. But even he could never have predicted just how good it would look 17 years later. That’s because, a few months after he bought the Land Rover, he got a new job with a company car and his Disco stayed in the garage, venturing out only for its annual jaunt to the MOT station. Every year it passed with flying colours, which was no surprise because it was, to all intents and purposes, a new car. Due to the fact it spent its time in a heated garage, there was no chance of corrosion eating away the rear chassis as it did so many other Discovery 2s of the same vintage. In fact, there was no rust at all. Even the mild-steel exhaust system was still bright and shiny after 17 years. Eventually, in 2017, the owner decided to sell his pristine Discovery. But after looking after it so well, for so long, he was very particular about who he sold it to. He wanted to