All in One Ten
Meet the man who has created every model of Defender in one very special vehicle
SUCH are the options with Land Rovers, that out of the box it can be hard to choose which one best fits. A 90 is the best off-road, easiest to manoeuvre; 110 has the best ride and practicality, but who doesn’t love the do-anything ruggedness of a 130? All this is before you think about modifying the top half to further fit your needs. Solihull even has its own department to cater for such desires: Special Vehicle Operations (SVO). Today SVO are responsible for cars like the Range Rover Sport SVR, but originally they started in Lode Lane, doing off-menu modifications for customers. They were the factory go-to guys to fit roll cages, chassis extensions, extra axles, box bodies – you name it. They produced the Camel Trophy vehicles each year, once made an amphibious 90 for Cowes Week and created the World’s longest Land Rover in 1991 (a 170 inch wheelbase 6x6 with a 3.5 V8). You name it, the boys in Block 35 did it, or could do it.
But when choosing your Defender, what if you could have the best of everything: the manoeuvrability and off-road ability of a 90, but with a 130 wheelbase, and the length of a 110? You’d need a genius to design such a car.
Well, believe it or not there is a man who did just that. His name is Dr René A S Hoyle (Ceng Csci FIMMM Micorr) and this is his creation. You may realise from his letterhead that he is indeed intelligent, but the story gets better, for the everything-in-one nature of the car wasn’t his original plan. No, his original plan was simply to create his perfect 6x6 Defender. If all that wasn’t enough, this amazing Land Rover was conceived by an expert in corrosion. You almost couldn’t make the story up, but it is all true.
Retiring in 2017 from the successful materials
analysis business he set up 14 years previously, he debated what to do next and having owned Land Rovers since 1985 and always been fascinated by 6x6s, he decided to build something a little unusual. His daily is an L405 Range Rover SDV8, so this Defender is the polar opposite. “If you look at the modern cars, they are all very much of the same mould and I thought if I’m going to build a car it’s got to be different.”
Being into Defenders (having had a few, plus a Series III 109 with a BMC diesel engine), he wondered what he could do with the 110 body. “I’ve seen 90s go off-road and there are advantages. I’ve had problems in a 110 where a 90 would cope, so I thought let’s combine the two.”
I’m imagining more than the back of a napkin was involved, but René came up with the design and contacted Foley Specialist Vehicles in Essex. Well regarded in bespoke Defender work, including many 6x6 conversions, René was heartened to hear their confidence in being able to do anything, but admits they were surprised by his concept.
As you would expect with an expert on materials, engineering and corrosion, René admits his build specification for Foley ran to ‘about four pages’, and included a galvanised chassis and fixings for the structure, 300Tdi engine, R380 gearbox and LT77 transfer box. Body-wise he wanted a two-door, with folding forward-facing seats in the back like a 90, near the driver to enable conversation.
The base vehicle was an ex-military 300Tdi 130, using an ex-farm 300Tdi 90 for trim. The chassis started out as a Td5 90 frame from Marsland, supplied in bare metal. Foley cut that, put its own extension in for the rear axle, which was hot dipped galvanised. Evidence of the chassis extension is only revealed by a keen eye, spotting neat welds behind the rearmost axle spring mounts. The wheelbase between front and middle is 92.99 inches as per the standard 90. The second axle is 40 inches behind that, making a wheelbase front to rear of 132.99 inches (rounded down to 130, as the factory rounded up 127). All this is broadly standard Solihull fare. In isolation, that is.
To go on top of this, René specified a hard top with sliding windows, with the windows positioned as a 90 would be. Behind those is a standard hard top. The genius thing here is that to cover the Frankenstein driveline, the car ended up with the body dimensions of a factory 110, near as damn it, but you’d never spot it wasn’t exactly a 110.
The rear of the car, though, isn’t standard Solihull. That extra axle is driven by Foley’s own transfer box, engaged as needed and driven off a propshaft between the middle and rear axle. It may have six wheels, but drive selection is where things get really interesting.
In normal use the rearmost axle is undriven, to aid fuel consumption, tyre wear and transmission wind up. The middle axle is the normal driven one, with the propshaft off the transfer box as Lode Lane made. When the going gets tough this means the centre diff can be locked as normal in the LT77 box via the usual stubby lever, forcing drive to at least one wheel at the front and middle axles, exactly as a 90 would be. Drive to the rearmost axle can then be
pneumatically engaged off the middle axle, meaning you then have at least one wheel turning on all three axles. Note the ‘at least one wheel turning’ part, for standard axles have an open diff between each side. Lose traction and the diff sends rotation to the least load side to side. “But all three axles also have diff locks in as well,” Hoyle adds, proudly. It is a comprehensive system, allowing user-selectable drive to anything from two, three, four, five or six wheels.
And there is more. The car sits on standard springs and dampers, but the middle axle has plus one-inch springs, simply to bias load to the middle axle on road. Set up like this, the rear axle will scrub, limiting tyre life but this means the car pivots around the middle axle, improving the turning circle. So in tight manoeuvres, the car behaves like a 90, within the length of a 110.
Axles were all recon, with standard vented discs front, solid on the rears, turning 235/85 16 BF Goodrich Mud Terrain KM3S on Wolf steel rims – basically the heaviest duty wheels you can get. The Td5 fuel tank is housed near the rear crossmember, but Foley added the under-seat tank from a 300Tdi, totalling 135 litres in capacity. Bodywork and internal trim is from the donor car, unchanged from factory internally up to the bulkhead behind the driver. From there backwards is custom. Two front-facing seats, sliding windows and interior trim as a 90 Station Wagon, with bare panels on the rearmost interior. Two 90 rear tubs were cut, TIG welded and finished to fit the axles as the factory would have intended.
Exterior is factory Marine Blue, with Safety Devices sixpoint roll-cage bolted to the 110 hard top, with checker-plate on the wing tops and sills, between and behind the rear axles. A Cyclone filter atop snorkel ensures clean air feed to engine and axles should the going get tough. An A-bar with twin Wipac spots plus four cage-mounted Wipac S7304 lamps mean René can see everything except the future, and the rear has a removable two-inch receiver hitch for tow ball or recovery point.
Despite appearing a complicated build commission, Foley turned it around in three months, with its trademark high-end attention to detail, to boot. There’s the potential for no end of snagging in custom builds, so I bravely ask René: is he happy with it? “Very,” he answers. “I’m still learning what it will do, and probably will be for the next 20 years, if I’m being honest.” Keen to use the car, he’s joined his local 4x4 Response team, so is looking forward to fulfilling the car’s potential.
The final result is a vehicle that invites close attention, and the more you see, the more you notice. Not just the factory quality build and finish, but watching it manoeuvre, the car merges between wheelbases. Turning tightly, it’s a 90. On the move it looks like a 110, but off-road it screams 6x6, with three axles articulating over terrain. Crossing an obstacle, the 90 breakover angle shines. Traction breaks easiest on the middle axle, cured by locking the centre diff. If that doesn’t create traction, drive to the rearmost axle is actuated and progress soon resumes. Watching articulation is almost hypnotic, with the rearmost axle even occasionally lifting clear off the ground. The rearmost axle is so far back, the
breakover, approach and departure angles are as good as they can possibly be. “It is the best of all three worlds!” René quips. It’s also a very clever build, and I can’t understand why more haven’t been built before this.
LRM couldn’t meet a Land Rover-owning corrosion expert and let it pass, so I quiz René on the obvious. Did he make any effort to corrosion-proof it? “To a certain extent. Through work I’m exposed to corrosion protection day in, day out, so thought I’ve got to protect it,” he says. “Being hard bits to replace, the chassis and fixings are galvanised, then Waxoyled, but beyond that, nothing.” says René. “There’s certain places that are just going to corrode, you’re on a hiding to nothing. You can buy a panel for a Land Rover – and will do for a while yet! I reckon this will do 25 years,” he says.
This is a fascinating vehicle, and one of the most interesting I’ve seen in years – in concept, execution and final outcome. We’ve all seen so many modified or custom Land Rovers, that something like this is refreshing. This one isn’t just clever, it achieves so much, yet comes from such a simple original concept, and looks like it was made in the factory. It can’t be coincidence Foley Specialist Vehicles is so named – I reckon Lode Lane’s original SVO would be proud of this build. I know René is.