How many Land Rovers is too many? Well, that does indeed depend on several factors, and for me it is the Wife. Apparently four is my maximum amount before divorce lawyers are called. For some this is a lucky position to be in, whereas others wonder how I manage with so few.

Anyway, let’s get back to the tale in hand. It was a day like any other. I had already had my morning coffee and was sat at my desk at work wondering if it was time to grab a second when a team’s message popped up from a work colleague. Did I have time for a quick chat about Land Rovers. My response was swift and a little too honest perhaps. “Well, if you want your eyes to glaze over and to lose the will to live, I have all day!”

The story goes his mother had been bequeathed a house by a late friend, and when they opened the garage there laid a dismantled Land Rover. Not knowing quite what it was or what she was going to do with it, my friend said that he knows someone who knew about these things and to leave it with him. Hence the message.

Timmy, finally seeing the light of day after 40 years

I asked him what details he had, and from the chassis number I was able to deduce it was a 1968 88” Station Wagon suffix D. Now let’s not beat about the bush, these are desirable things indeed but restoring them can be expensive. The interior trim is unique to the station wagons and can be pricey to replace if it is damaged or missing. Then there is the usual things to look for such as condition of the chassis and bulkhead, not to mention door frames and tops. My colleague Lee thought that it all looked ok and a far as he knows it was all there, just not bolted together. My appetite was wetted but this left me with a bit of a problem. My four Land Rover limit.

A phone call was in order. My good friend Duncan like old cars and has a couple of classic Triumph rebuilds under his belt. “How do you fancy going halves on an old Land Rover” I asked. I am not sure I had even finished the sentence before his interest was piqued and he agreed. A visit to see the Land Rover in question was planned. Now you may be wondering why I planned to go halves on this purchase. Well two-fold if I am honest. One, restoring a Land Rover with a friend is always a good laugh and secondly, if I only owned half then technically, I only had 4.5 Land Rovers not 5, man maths at its finest I’m sure you’ll agree.

Loading Timmy onto the trailer took longer than planned!

We got there and found it looking forlorn in a leaking garage parked nose forward. The rear tub was sat on the chassis and various other body parts were lent against the wall. Something wasn’t right though, the wheels looked at odd angles. An inspection quickly identified the root cause. No suspension. The axles were held in place by ratchet straps and blocks of wood. A search of the garage turned up most parts, including the all-important trim. Whilst dirty and damaged in places, it did look ok, so that was a relief. The doors were rough, but these could easily be replaced. The rear tub was ok but would need some new rear quarter panels, again easy enough to sort. The engine and gearbox were largely complete, and the bulkhead was salvageable. The chassis however was amazing, with only surface rust. The biggest issue was the lack of front body panels. None existed.

After our inspection myself and Duncan agreed a price and we made an offer. Could we give then 48 hours to think about it, well of course we could. I also said that if they wanted to sell it on the open market then I would help them, Lee, after all is a good work colleague. A couple of days later Lee got in contact and his response certainly surprised me. His mum wanted us to have it and put it back on the road, but she didn’t want as much money as we offered, and she counter offered a lower price. A price that was too low for me to be comfortable with in fact! I had never done a car deal like this in my life as I tried to pay more money than she was asking! We settled on a mid-point and all that remained was to collect the Land Rover and move it to its new home.

Fully loaded we dropped the spare parts off at Duncan’s

Now if you have ever tried to move a vehicle that has stood for 40 plus years it can be difficult. To make it worse, the garage entrance was tight, and the driveway was even tighter. My L663 only just fitted, and I couldn’t open the doors once it was in place. The plan was to drag out Timmy (as we decided to call him) behind the Defender, but very slowly as with the axles being held on by ratchet straps meant it didn’t pull straight. Underway, the first few meters were tense as the wheels were locked and Timmy was simply dragged, then the wheels freed, and it got easier. We eventually we pulled him up the driveway and lined him up with the trailer, we had borrowed, but now we had another issue. The trailer didn’t have a winch, and we were unable to push Timmy onto it. The only option we had was to use the high lift jack as a hand winch to pull him in place on the trailer. With only 4 feet of usable pull, this was very time consuming as we had to pull Timmy, secure him whilst we reset the jack, and start again. Once on the trailer we loaded up all the other parts and strapped them down. The back of the Defender was also full as was Duncan’s Hi-Lux!

Now on axle stands in his new home, the work has begun to get Timmy back to full health.

We eventually got Timmy back, with the spare parts and trim being stored in Duncan’s garage and the rolling chassis being stored in my garage. The strip down began, by removing the bulkhead, engine and gearbox. The chassis was lifted and place on stands so the axles could be removed. Once we had the chassis stripped, we realised something interesting. It wasn’t a good condition original chassis as we thought. It was in fact a 1980’s replacement chassis, genuine Land Rover supply. It had never even had leaf springs fitted! It was in fact a brand new 40-year-old chassis. Only surface rust! Result indeed.

The missing front body panels were replaced after a visit to an LRM spares day at Ripon racecourse.

A couple of weeks later there was a LRM spares day at Ripon racecourse, so with pound notes in pocket and a long list of spares needed we hit the stalls! We now have most of the parts we need to start putting it back together, a process that we suspect will take years. But we have made a start. Looking at the paperwork we have deduced that the Landy was taken off the road in the early 1980’s. With no front body panels and a need for a new chassis we suspect it may have been involved in an accident, but this is just speculation. It doesn’t look to have been touched in decades, so this should be a good base for a restoration. A few weeks later, I was speaking to fellow LRLife admin Dave Cook who also happens to have a restored 1968 Station Wagon. I was taking pictures of how the interior trim should look for reference when I noted the chassis number. Only 3 vehicles difference between his and ours. They may have even been built on the same day! It’ll be great to reunite them when we have finished, but in the meantime, we still have a lot of work to do! Watch this space!

Upon inspection we found LRLife admin David Cooks own 1968 Station Wagon to be only 3 chassis numbers older!