Caught the Bug

This blog is about my wife's Land Rover Series III 109 RHD 5 door truck and the work we have put into it in the two years we have owned it. I have spent countless hours searching the web and reading similar postings from other Land Rover fans around the world and I have learned quite a bit. My hope is that this blog will contain some information, hints or tips that other Land Rover Series fans will find useful or maybe just amusing.

My wife and I have both had, and still have, a fascination with old Series Land Rovers. "Born Free," "Daktari" and "The God's Must be Crazy." We first encountered these iconic vehicles the same way most people did.

For a couple of years in the early 1990's, I lived in Costa Rica and I was amazed to see how many Series Land Rovers were in use throughout that country. My sister and her family were also living in Costa Rica at that time and they had a pastel green Series IIa 109 5 door with the 4 cylinder diesel. I drove that truck all over San Jose and the surrounding cities and, even though it was slow, loud and smelly, I loved it. It never failed to start and it never failed to bring me home. Not far from the house in which I lived, there was an old green 88 sitting on the side of the road, on its axles, with a tree growing through the engine compartment. Every time I passed that 88, I dreamed of bringing at least one back to the U.S. and dropping it onto a modern truck frame. (I suppose a warning is needed at this point: neither my wife nor I are Land Rover purists--after market and non-standard parts and accessories are just fine with us.)

Fast forward about ten years. During that time, about the only attention we paid to Land Rovers was when we would (rarely) see a Defender drive by. My wife called them "Destroyers." I thought that was a fitting name for them. We had moved to Dallas, Phoenix and, finally, Redmond, Washington where we met some friends who had just bought an eight year old shiny black Range Rover. Seeing that car reminded me of Series Land Rovers and of the old green 88 with the tree growing through it back in Costa Rica. I began to troll on Craigslist and quickly found an olive drab 88 in Oregon with no roof, a V-8, and a huge custom fuel tank filling the rear tub for $4000 OBO. That seemed so inexpensive and so obtainable! When I told my wife about it, her eyes lit up--she caught the bug too. This was late November 2007.