King of the Defenders
Greg King has got every LRM reader's dream job – he’s an engineer at Land Rover. Better still, he’s the owner of a very low mileage 50th Anniversary Limited Edition Defender
Meet the man who has it all: A job at Land Rover as an engineer and a 50th Anniversary Defender
THIS YEAR marks not only the 70th birthday of Land Rover, but also the 20th anniversary of arguably the finest model it ever built – the truly beautiful 1998 Defender 50th Anniversary Limited Edition. And today we’re meeting the owner of what is probably the best of them. That man is Greg King, for whom ownership means more than just being the custodian of one of the most desirable Defenders ever made. After all, Land Rovers are – literally – his life.
As a boy, most of Greg’s pals fantasized of becoming engine drivers, fighter pilots or playing football for England. But Greg dreamed of building Land Rovers – and his dreams came true.
“The Defender 50th was the first project I worked on as a newly-qualified engineer,” says Greg. “I’d moved up from South Devon at the age of 16 to join Land Rover as a technician engineering apprentice and after four years I qualified as an engineer. The first project I was assigned to was the special edition Defender the company was planning to build to celebrate Land Rover’s 50th anniversary.
“I remember my first meeting with the late Peter Armel, who was the Programme Manager. He told me we were going to make an Eu-compliant V8-powered Defender based around the NAS 90. I was so excited to be involved!
“I did a lot of engineering work and drawings for the Defender 50th. It’s a great bit of Land Rover history that’s really personal to me, and when we launched it I promised myself that one day I would own one.”
The model Greg had fallen in love with was very much influenced by another muchcoveted Defender variant. That one was the NAS 90, which was built for the US market and launched in 1993, following the introduction a year earlier of the NAS 110. They finally provided the V8-powered Land Rover that had first been requested by Rover’s then North American boss, Bruce Mcwilliams, as early as the mid-1960s, and they were also the first Land Rovers to be offered for sale in the United States since 1974.
At last, American four-wheeling enthusiasts could buy a Defender to compete with the big petrol Jeeps, while the rest of us could only look on in envy. The NAS 90 was viewed jealously by enthusiasts in the UK and other countries around the world.
Although outwardly similar to the Uk-market SV90, much of the success of the NAS 90 was attributed to that big V8 under the bonnet – so Land Rover decided to celebrate its 50th anniversary in 1998 with a limited edition 4.0-litre V8 with automatic transmission.
For the UK market, the Defender 50th would be offered in a limited run of 385 vehicles, each with an engraved numbered plaque mounted on the offside rear bodywork. All had an integral Safety Devices rollover cage, stainless
steel side runners and chequerplate panels on the wings and body sides.
The UK vehicles were all painted in very distinctive Atlantis Blue and fitted with Freestyle alloy wheels in gunmetal grey. It was, and still is, an eye-catching and beautiful combination.
Similar vehicles were prepared for overseas markets as well, although those for the Japanese market were finished in White, Red or Atlantis Blue. In total, 1071 were built, although it’s said that a number of new vehicles destined for Japan were written-off after a shipping accident.
“I got my first one in March 2006,” recalls Greg. “It was number GB331 and I bought it from Rogers of Bedford. It was a nice vehicle with 69,000 miles and full service history. I joined the Defender 50th Owners Club and Vehicle Register and soon became good friends with James Byng and a number of the group’s members.
“At the time, my wife and I had a new baby so I converted the rear seats to forward-facing ones, which I needed to do at the time to make the 50th work for us as a family. We did a lot of shows and events and a fair bit of greenlaning with it. I loved it! But after three years I had to sell it because we needed to finance our house move. I was sad to see it go, and I knew I’d made a mistake the moment it drove away”
Although the 50th had gone, Greg couldn’t live without a Defender and a 300Tdi 90 was soon on the driveway, followed by a Puma-engined vehicle. “But lovely though they both were.” he says, “I still pined for my 50th!
“Then last year it all changed. I went down to the Dunsfold Collection Show in June, and bumped into James and the 50th Owners Club guys for the first time in several years, and mentioned to James that if he heard of any nice, low-mileage examples to let me know, because they were very few and far between by then.
“Things then happened quickly and I got a tip-off about a 6600-mile 50th that might be coming on the market. The idea that there might be one out there with such low mileage was very exciting. I managed to speak to the owner and was amazed to discover that he lived only a few villages away. And the low mileage was genuine!”
Greg enlisted the help of James from the 50th Owners Club as a second pair of expert eyes and they arranged to
view the vehicle as soon as they could. “We couldn’t believe what we were seeing,” says Greg. “It was the real deal!”
GB036 had been bought new from Yarnolds of Stratford on June 9, 1998, making it one of the earliest to be registered. Its first owner kept it for over 19 years. It was used very lightly, covering only 1500 miles in its first year. At its first service it was fitted with a full set of seat covers and a Genuine Parts loadspace liner, and then departed for another family property in Surrey, where it was used as a second vehicle and sometimes covered a couple of hundred miles a year. By 2006 it had still driven only 5100 miles.
“The only thing that was wrong with it when I bought it was the roof paintwork and some superficial corrosion on various fixings. It turned out that the truck had been left outside for extended periods while it was in Surrey, and the lacquer and paint on the roof had deteriorated quite badly. I deliberated for some time before deciding that the paintwork needed to be sorted out, and at the same time I removed all the corroded or discoloured fixings, such as the rivets that secured the chequerplate on the front wings, and either cleaned them or replaced them.”
As a result, the only word to describe the Defender is mint, and Greg intends to keep it that way. The engine bay is a joy to behold and it’s like a brand-new car underneath. The vehicle also remains completely standard and has no modifications whatsoever which, as Greg says, is rare on a 20-year-old Defender.
“I’m delighted to be the custodian of such a wonderful example, and really pleased to have a 50th back in the garage,” says Greg. “I plan to use it and enjoy it but I must admit I’ll be keeping the miles off to a degree. It’s still the lowest-mileage 50th that I know of.”
Greg plans to take it to a few events this year, including the Defender 50th twentieth anniversary event and the new Land Rover Legends Show at Bicester Heritage. He is very clearly an enthusiast of the first order, and reveals that his 50th is actually the 14th Series or Defender vehicle that he has owned, starting with an early Series III in 1991 which he drove around the family farm at the age of 14.
He’s clearly doing his dream job, having been at Land Rover now for 25 years. Having worked as a young engineer on the Defender 50th, things came full circle when he worked on the recently-launched Works V8 Defender.
So why didn’t a V8 Defender figure among the end-ofproduction limited editions that were made available in 2015?
“A V8-powered vehicle was actually considered as early as 2014 and a couple were built for appraisal,” reveals Greg. “But we simply couldn’t make the economics work at the time, which was a shame. Offering a re-manufactured and re-engineered Defender as a Works V8 is a perfect fit for JLR’S Classic Works operation, and I feel that what we’ve created with Works V8 is a kind of spiritual successor to the NAS 90 and the Defender 50th.”
So what comes next? “I’m just moving off the Works V8 programme and have been asked to take on an interesting and exciting new project that I think will have a big impact,” says Greg. “But unfortunately I can’t tell you what it is!”
These are heady times for JLR; everything they touch seems to turn to gold. It certainly helps their cause that they have true enthusiasts like Greg on their team. We wait with bated breath for their next exciting move.