Land Rover/Range Rover Hybrid

The Land Rover Hybrid was the longest build of all ours cars. It took over 5 years to build. Now you might be asking what a hybrid is. Well its a combination of a Land Rover Series/Defender type body with a Classic Range Rover chassis and drive train. Why do this? Well The Classic Range Rover has one of the best chassis and suspension set ups around and the Land Rover body is very robust and also has a classic shape. Both combinations make a light, yet strong vehicle that can go anywhere.
In building our hybrid we used a total of 23 donor vehicles out of seven makes, as well as parts from our shelves. Over the years we have modified the Landy to what it is now.

We started off with a 1976 Range Rover chassis. With this chassis we cut out 12" from the centre to make the wheel base 88". From there we cut the rear over hang and manufactured a cross member to fit. Then all the other body out riggers were fabricated and fitted. Once we had the chassis prepared, we fitted the axles, the 3.5L Rover V8 engine and LT95 gearbox. The body was then fitted. Once the body was fitted we then proceeded with the little fiddly things. The SIII steering column had to be modified so we could mate it to the Range Rover steering box. The Brake pedal housing had to be modified to fit the Range Rover brake booster. The rear propshaft had to be made. A radiator had to be custom made and many other little things had to be custom made.

Now at this stage the Landy was on the road running well, but we still wanted to do other things. A roll bar and soft top were fabricated. A swing away rear spare wheel carrier was made. Defender one piece doors were fitted. Now more power was needed, so we built a 3.9L Rover V8 for it. This V8 runs our stage 1 heads, stage 1 camshaft, Edelbrock Performer® inlet manifold with a Carter® 500cfm carby. To get the gasses out we have used H&M headers with a custom build 2 ½ " exhaust system. For a light weight vehicle this engine puts out plenty of power.

As you can imagine a lot of work has been put into this build and there is always still more to do. Although a great conversion only a few have been done. The mongrel has featured in the October 2000 edition of Australian 4WD monthly, issue 19

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