TUBEWAY BARMY Early Land Rover Discoverys are famous for many things. Among them is an insane degree of body rust – which is why many of those that survived beyond middle age have ended up on the sharp end of an angle grinder. This 300Tdi buggy is one of the more creative results we’ve seen – but despite everything, deep down it’s still a Disco Words and pictures: Dan Fenn
W
e know how it goes with Mk1 Discoverys. They’re great old vehicles with the tried and trusted offroad tech from a Range Rover, and they’re also been described as a 100” Defender – only one that won’t deafen, freeze, bake or disable you. We know all this from experience. We also know that on top of all this good old technology is a body that rusts away to nothing – which is the main reason why there are so few of them left. If you have the time, the skill and the equipment, a rotten old Disco can be brought back to the way it once was. But there’s also the option of turning it into something it never was. A few companies have gone down the route of offering kit car bodies as a way of helping owners turn grotty old sheds into funky new buggies. But mainly, Land Rover owners being the kind of people they are, when you see a Disco based special it’s a home-brew. Some look more like Discos than others. Some indeed look more like Defenders than others, while some mainly look like your worst nightmare. This one doesn’t really look like any of those things, but it definitely looks hard. We photographed it seven and a half years ago, so we don’t know if it still looks as hard these days. And all we can remember of the owner was that he was called Hugo. But we did take some notes, so at least we were paying attention a bit, however for one reason or another the vehicle never made it into the magazine at the time. Er, well there’s no point rushing these things.
42 | JULY 2022
5.5 Hugo Disco.indd 42
4x4 05/06/2022 22:59
