Project Discovery We wave goodbye to our Disco with a round-up of all work done so far.

With the last couple of jobs ticked off, we say goodbye to the Discovery and look back over a year with the modern classic Land Rover.

T he Discovery has been with CM for a year now and during its time as a project car has proved to be an interesting diversion. When we introduced the car we mentioned how it was a very significant vehicle for Land Rover and that alone gives it genuine classic status. Quite simply, without the first-generation Discovery it’s unlikely that Land Rover would have survived as an independent brand and certainly the combination of ever-more plush Range Rover and spartan Defender wouldn’t have been sufficient to fight off the 1980s Japanese wave of leisure-orientated 4x4s.

The idea of sitting a modern seven-seat body on the tried-and-tested Range Rover chassis was inspired and as history has shown, the Discovery has proved more popular than any other Land Rover product, to the point where it has now been spun off into a brand in its own right.

Early pre-facelift cars like ours are really pretty thin on the ground now too, making it a more unusual sight at a classic car event than an MGB or TR6. When you do spot the odd early car it’s generally sporting the larger headlights of the post-’94 facelift cars and preceded by the clatter of the 200TDi engine, many of the V8 models having been pirated for their engines long ago.

Since finding the car online and making a Paypal payment in the vendor’s kitchen over a cuppa back in February 2015, the Discovery has been pressed into service for a combination of everyday duties, commuting, people carrying and a spot of towing. All of this it has shrugged off and it remains one of the most practical classics we’ve run.

The lofty driving position is always a treat and although the Discovery, even in injected V8 form, is no sports car it gets along pretty well and is more than capable of an 80mph motorway cruise if required.

In urban driving it’s easier to live with than you might think, with the V8’s ample torque and the generally low gearing meaning low-speed town driving can generally be achieved in third gear without dropping into second very often.

Of course its nigh-on two-tonne weight and a petrol-fired V8 engine aren’t the best recipe for economy but we’ve been pleasantly surprised by its everyday economy. Certainly on purely subjective grounds it seems a lot less thirsty than the XJS and a rough back-ofan-envelope calculation suggests we’re not far off the official best of 26 mpg in gentle use.

As far as other running costs go, Land Rover’s parts-bin engineering when creating the Discovery pays dividends today, with firms like our project sponsor Britpart able to supply pretty much everything you might need. Parts are affordable too, meaning you should be able to keep a Disco up together for MG money.

So has it all been plain sailing? Er.. mostly, although the sudden screech from the console area early one summer’s morning proved to be an expensive one. With the Disco recovered from the hard shoulder of the M5, a failed gearbox was diagnosed and we spent the best part of a week dismantling the undercarriage and removing the transfer box in order to fit a reconditioned box supplied by Ashcroft Transmissions.

That unscheduled pit stop aside, the Disco has proved to be a reliable prospect, never failing to start and requiring only a hub seal and wheel bearing apart from regular service items.

Classic Range Rover values have already climbed sharply for nice early examples and late-model LSE’s while excitement over the end of Defender production has seen their prices rise, too. All of which makes the early Discovery something of a best-kept secret, offering more usability and refinement than the Defender or Series Landies, coupled with more practicality than the classic Range Rover.

In fact it seemed a shame to part with such a rare early example and just as I was about to put my hand in my own pocket, along came Kelsey’s MD Phil Weeden who has taken it on, so look out for it making future appearances in CM.