Crap cars of the past... we've just done maybe 3000km round trip in the young fella's 1994 Discovery with 3.9 V8, it didn't miss a beat and thrummed at 2600 revs at 110 like those scale model V8 motors you see on youtube...
Got a 12.7L/100km on the Hume run back down, that's a new best score
Got to fang it on long beaches at 20psi, it absolutely loved the soft sand and sounded glorious doing so. You think it's gutless but it has the torque where it's really needed. The sand driving was an absolute hoot, a trip highlight as we don't get too much of that here because rules and hooded plover genocide
Consumed 0.5L oil on the 1500km+ up, and the same on the way down. Started every time. Body honestly feels more solid than 1990s Fords and Holdens we have/have had - maybe that's the ladder on frame and solid chassis. What isn't really measurable is the character the car has, and in spades.
We hit the heaviest rain I've experienced in years somewhere between Cowra and Bathurst, it kept raining hard all the way out until we appeared from the national park mountains in the Hunter (great drive!) There were two moments when the non
ABS, no nothing safety Disco did begin to slide on right corners going down into a valley, but good driving response and the full time 4wd saved any panel damage on the chicanes... We saw what was left of a BA that hadn't been so lucky...
Also did obligatory laps of Bathurst in the rain, it struggled to top 40 up the hill lol, but we got to be part of the thing that is the V8 legend of Bathurst haha
And this wouldn't be an unreliable Land Rover story without something going wrong - Lucas Prince of Darkness took the indicators somewhere near the town with the Oberon class submarine on the way back... 12 midnight through the Melbourne ring road meant the need for only a couple of stealth lane changes...
Overall, I'm falling in love with the little Rover V8, could happily have another in maybe the form of a late Classic Rangey. It's not very powerful, thirsty, antiquated, obsolete - and goes about being itself with lot of character and fun.