Deserving a good home
THIS rather lovely looking old Range Rover came in for a service and MOT. It is a late soft dash version, very smart inside and out. It had been stored unused for a while and when the owner dropped it off he told me that the power steering was not working.
I checked the fluid reservoir and it was empty so I topped it up, started the engine and crawled underneath to look for leaks. While I was under there I noticed that the panel under one of the headlight boxes looked a little bit rusty, although it was hard to be sure as the entire underside was plastered in sticky black underseal. I prodded the panel with one finger and a large hole appeared.
By the time I had finished inspecting the usual Range Rover rot spots the work required included new front inner wings, substantial repairs to the front floors and bulkhead, a new boot floor and a fair amount of work to the body mounts. In other words it needed a full inner shell restoration and that kind of work does not come cheap. The owner had purchased the vehicle shortly before the Covid pandemic hit and barely had the chance to drive it.
The old beast will make a lovely restoration project for someone with the necessary time and skill. It is, by Range Rover standards, a very basic vehicle with manual seats, no sunroof, no air conditioning and very little in the way of electrical toys. That might not have been a desirable specification in the 1990s but it makes restoration an awful lot easier. The chassis is solid and it seems mechanically healthy – hopefully I will find someone to give it the loving home it deserves.