Disco pick-up
What do you do with a rusty Discovery 1? Turn it into an Aussie-inspired ute, of course…
What do you do with a rusty Discovery? Turn it into an Aussie-inspired ute, of course
THIRTY YE YEARS ago, the newly-launched Discovery was Europe’s best-selling 4x4 and profitable enough to secure the future of Land Rover. Thanks to its bulletproof Tdi engines, practicality and good looks it sold like hot cakes and the love affair continued for more than a decade – until the early models began succumbing to terminal rust.
The original Disco had been cobbled together on a low budget, using Range Rover chassis and running gear. Corrosion resistance was very low on the priority list – and it showed. The steel bodywork just crumbled away.
Most were scrapped and their Tdis salvaged to power Defenders and other Land Rover models. What else can you do with a rusty Discovery?
Well, actually, quite a bit. You can turn them into an Aussieinspired ute, for example. And before you ask, a ‘ute’ is short for ‘utility’, which is what folk Down Under call flatbed pick-ups. Just like the one on these pages.
Its creator is Michal Ciepacz, 30, from Longforgan, near Dundee in Scotland. Originally from Poland, he first came to Scotland in 2007 as a teenager to earn some extra money picking soft fruit. He returned a year later and stayed ever since. He is a sprayer operator on the same farm where he started work back at the age of 18 and where they grow strawberries, blueberries and blackberries, plus a few cattle.
“I am not married but my girlfriend of ten years and I have a
five-year-old daughter, Lily, who likes Land Rovers as much as me,” says Michael, who loves all things British – but particularly Land Rovers.
“I have previously owned a 109 LWB Series IIA and an 88 SWB Series III as well as a Defender, which I sold when the prices went up. I had this idea in my head that the money I got from the Defender would be enough to fund a new project – something unique.
“I’d already owned Series vehicles, so I wasn’t going to do that again. But being a big fan of Land Rovers I knew it would have to be one. I spent a week spent looking through adverts but nothing came for sale close to where I live in Scotland. Then one night I spotted a not-bad-looking Discovery 1 for sale in England
“It was a 1994 five-door 300Tdi with a manual gearbox. It was on ebay and I bought it on February 14 this year, without seeing it. I wasn’t too worried about its condition, knowing that it would be going through a lot of work anyway. I paid £850 for it and had it delivered the following week. It had covered 165,000 miles.
“In first week of driving it I started to make a list of things needing to be done. First on the list were noisy wheel bearings, which had to be replaced. I slowly moved on, getting all the oil leaks sorted and gave it a good service, including adjusting the water pump and timing belts and valve clearances.
“One day while my girlfriend was vacuuming the back of the Discovery, I removed all the carpets, just to see how much water had leaked through the sunroof. I got a bit of a shock, because the rear of the body was so rusty that I knew repairing it would take too much of my time – and even if I did, at the end it would still be an ordinary Discovery just like all the others. I wanted to create something different
“I kept it as a standard Discovery for another month before I decided that it would be cool to convert it into a ute. I’m a big fan of Australian overlanding adventures and I collected pictures of different vehicles and the set-ups they used. I had decided that was what I was going to do with my Discovery.”
Michal started taking measurements and did some drawings. A plan was coming together.
“Knowing that the back of the Disco would have to go, I was looking into ways of closing the rear of the body,” he says. “Then I saw Longranger 4x4’s advert in LRM. I checked out their website and bought a fibreglass kit to sort the body.
“The kit came with a roof panel and back panel, plus a rear sliding window. It wasn’t cheap – I paid just under £1000 for it – but when it arrived the quality was amazing. I now had the most expensive part for my build waiting in the farm workshop, so the time had come to start stripping down the Discovery, axle by axle, bolt by bolt.
“Not being my first project, you learn by your past mistakes and how to make things easier. That’s why sandblasting the chassis back to bare metal was first on the list. Once this was done, according to my drawings, the chassis had to be stretched by 500 mm to accommodate storage boxes and – more importantly – to make the car look good by not having a massive overhang at the back.
“I made a jig to keep all body mounting points where they were while adding 500 mm to the length of chassis. I used one metre of 70x70 mm 5 mm box section, inserted into the frame, making sure that 250 mm was sitting inside the chassis on both ends and 500 mm was the gap between the front and back of the frame.
“After taking few measurements to make sure everything was 100 per cent straight, it was all welded together and plates were added to bring the middle part of the frame to the same level, flush with the rest of the chassis. After that I added one more crossmember, which the pick-up body frame was going to be bolted to.”
Finally, to keep that chassis good for many years to come, Michal sprayed it inside and out with rust-proofing, followed by three exterior coats of underseal. Then the axles were also sandblasted, painted and bolted in place to create a rolling chassis. “As I was using the farm shed, I had to be able to push it out of the way when space was needed for other jobs,” says Michal. “There were times when I seemed to be spending more time pushing it around than actually working on it, which was annoying, but I was lucky to be able to use this space for a project like this.
“All the work on my Disco was done in my spare time,
“I decided it would be cool to convert it into an Aussie ute”
often staying two or three hours after work and most of the weekends, while I was bolting all of it back together.
“I had one nerve-wracking moment on the day that the remains of what used to be the Discovery body had to be dropped onto the chassis. Because the body mounts had to be welded to the new part of the frame, I was never 100 per cent sure if everything would match up – but it did!
“The Longranger body kit was then bolted and glued together, making the cab watertight again. It was very easy to fit it on.
“I decided that I would respray the car in its original colour, Aegean Blue, with the exception of the roof and bonnet, which were painted in Raptor black, to give a bit more protection. To keep costs down I sprayed it myself – it doesn’t look too bad considering I was working in dusty conditions on a busy farm.
“It was then time to make up the rear. The frame was made from 50x50 mm 3 mm thick box section painted with black Raptor then covered in 3 mm aluminium chequer plate. The frame was bolted to the chassis in six places (and can be removed if needed in ten minutes). New mudguards were added, together with storage boxes and new back lights, then two planks of wood were sanded and painted to give a nice finish to the drop sides.
“The entire project took about four months to finish, but you have to remember that it was a spare-time project, not a full-time job. I did it all myself, apart from when five-yearold Lily ‘helped’ me! It was fun for her – and she did paint the drop sides.
“I will be using the car as my daily run-around. With a flat bed of 5 x 7 ft it’s so handy just to be able to chuck things in the back. I’m hoping to do a little bit of overlanding around Scotland at some point.
“Future plans also include making an aluminium box for it, and maybe getting a roof tent – but I haven’t decided yet.
“It’s only been back on the road for a few weeks, so it’s too early to say what sort of mpg I am getting, but it’s very fast – removing all that steel and glass, together with the rear seats, has made it a lot lighter.
“It’s a real head-turner and I get a lot of attention wherever I go. Some people call it the ultimate farm vehicle, while others just say: ‘That looks great! What is it?’
“Would I do it again? Definitely, yes! I always say that life is too short to be driving boring cars. Just make them how you like them and don’t worry what other people say.”
Here at LRM we say it’s an inspired project that breathes new life into a rusty Discovery. And, as they say in Oz, it’s a beaut ute!