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Tasty Defender 110


mickeyw

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I was tipped off about this rather tasty Defender outside my local stealer a couple of days ago, so off I went for a nosy at lunch time.

From the badging it was built by Special Vehicles. At 07 plate would it be Td5 or Puma engined? I know it has the Puma bonnet, but I also know SV have a habit of making older cars looking newer than they are. Am I right in saying the Puma with air-con doesn't have the protruding front grill? This one has. There's no Defender badging to give anything away at the rear.

It's LHD and sports some colossal Mickey Thompson Baja Claws on beadlocked Mach 5 rims, A D44 bumper with Warn 8274, Southdown rock sliders, Dan Bars over the factory drag and track rods, Protection & Performance cage that as far as I could see went to the chassis at all points.

The wheelarches are on a par with Icelandic stuff I've seen. The front wings are heavily trimmed, as are the rears.

There is an interesting tow hitch that to my eyes is a modified Dixon Bate adjustable height unit with a US style square receiver hitch grafted into it.

The suspension does not look lifted particularly, a std 110 sits pretty high anyway. There are no cranked radius arms or spring spacers etc. The extra height seems to be due to the tyres. The bump stops have been extended however, there was max 1/5" between the axles and bump stops, I imagine it must hit them frequently and would severly impede off-road performance :o

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It was built by SV to support some of the new vehicle launches I think, I seem to recall they used it on most of the Freelander 2 launch as a "go anywhere" recovery vehicle. Sadly they didn't bring it here :unsure:

Loosely based on the Icelandic glacier bashers hence the obvious similarities!

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Drove past that the other day on my way through the industrial estate. My local 'dealer' too ^_^

Not to my taste either. Nice to see a Defender at that dealer for once though, they usually don't have any. The parts department don't even keep parts for Defenders they get so few in. They had to order me some swivel pin shims, the one size they did have they had had on the shelf for three years!

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It was built for the Freelander 2 launch in Iceland I think.

Its the puma version, and Si has posted the Td5 version. Seen it a few times at shows. was on the D44 stand back in 2007... or was it the Td5 one? :unsure: no idea without looking back through my photos.

I like it :D. About the comments on the suspension... they dont build them for suspension travel like we do... over there its all about big rubber :ph34r: for floatation. :)

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It isn't all about max suspension travel here either, but 1/5" clearance to the bump stops would be painful, just from the continual hammering from the bump stops on any sort of rough ground. In fact I'd go as far as to say it would be undriveable - they must have got too carried away with the tyre size. Mine has about an inch of lift on the back and a little more on the front and doesn't rub in normal use with 33x13.50R15 on, anybody know what size those are - maybe 37s?

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