1994–2006
It came from South Africa by way of Costa Rica, which is an interesting routing. I bought it from a military guy in Port Hueneme. It had a crack in the block that had been mended with green goop. This turned out not to be a problem.
The non-syncro gearbox meant double-clutching everything, which is simpler mechanically but requires a technique. I showed up at British car shows where the Jaguars and Austin Healeys gleamed in concours rows and the Land Rover owners were relegated to the “Land Rover ghetto” at the edge of the field. We tried to arrive with the trucks muddy, as a statement of purpose.
Drove it from San Diego to Los Cabos and back — over a thousand miles through Baja California — and called it “a walk in the park.” This was not false modesty. By that point I had some calibration data on what bad looked like.
I eventually gave it to Lawrence Quiroz from British Pacific — the Land Rover shop in old Pasadena that had supported my habit for years, and that I had supported financially in return. The shop has since been replaced by a fancy restaurant. Gentrification claims another parts counter.