Description
1986/ D Range Rover 3. 5 V8 Vogue EFI Automatic.
This isn’t your usual approaching 40 year old Range Rover Classic and I will endeavour to detail why this is a special car indeed and why for a discerning enthusiast it could be the type of opportunity that if missed won’t come around again.
Its first point of distinction is that it is a one family owner from new vehicle. Supplied new to a very well-heeled lady in Southampton in September 1986 (this is a very early D-registration), the vehicle remained in her name for sixteen years and then the Range Rover was registered in the son’s name. So one former keeper showing on the V5 and current registered keeper bearing the same family name, so it has been the same family from new until I acquired the vehicle. One does not keep a car for over a quarter of a century if it is a lemon and unreliable, Range Rovers have always been troublesome and pricey to maintain, but clearly this one was a very good specimen.
The number of former keepers is an oft overlooked detail on a vehicle, for me it is more important and telling facet than a folder of bills or a shiny paint job. One can restore any car and treat it to a full mechanical overhaul and professional respray, but what no amount of money can buy retrospectively is PROVENANCE. You try and find another 1986 Range Rover with only two same family owners on the logbook, you won’t. So you just cannot compare my Range Rover with some 15-owner junkyard scrapper.
The car has only 77, 000 genuine miles, was serviced by the Land Rover main dealer network with a cost is no object approach, the current registered owner dates from 2002, and before that it was his mother from brand new in 1986. The car is HPI clear, never stolen and never smashed.
Secondly this Range Rover is my favourite variant of the umpteen evolutionary changes wrought on this iconic vehicle over its 25 year lifespan, and it is sure to appeal to other serious Range Rover cognoscenti too. In the 1990s this Range Rover was known in the trade as a Phase III Vogue, I’m probably the only person who remembers this though! That means is that it is the very first run of the fuel injected V8 Vogues, known as the “Vogue EFI”. Launched in late 1985 on a C-registration, the fuel injected Range Rover was one of the most significant improvements the car enjoyed. Using the Lucas electronically-managed fuel injection engine from the Rover SD1 3500 Vitesse, but detuned from 190bhp to 165bhp to suit the Range Rover application, finally the Range Rover had the performance to almost keep up with the fast BMW 7-series, Jaguar XJ6’s, S-Class Mercedes and big Volvos that it was stealing sales from. It was fuel injection that overnight turned the lumbering Range Rover into a car that could cruise all day at 80mph plus, no one moaned about petrol prices in Thatcher’s Britain, and the company was probably picking up the tab in any event.
My car came with the then brand new ZF 4-speed automatic transmission, an extra-cost option that added another £1250 to the price tag. It was a huge improvement over the lazy and outdated 3-speed Chrysler Torqueflite transmission that it replaced. Also fitted to the BMW E23 and later E32 7-series, this is one of the finest and most reliable automatic transmissions ever produced.
Aesthetically I find this “Phase III” Vogue to be the most handsome of all, and I am blessed with rather exquisite taste and an eye for design. It benefits from the rubber front spoiler housing the smart driving lamps, which originally was exclusive to the fuel-injected V8 models and really boosted the looks of the car, then there were the distinctive “Vogue” 3-spoke alloy wheels with their grey enamel finish with bright outer rim. The cheap side decal strips from the Phase II Vogue were binned and topflight Rover SD1 style proper side rubbing strips with bright insert were introduced. Subtle changes but they really did serve to endow the Range Rover with the prestigious look it needed.
However, the first Vogue EFIs still had the charming details carried over from previous incarnations, most obvious is the metal vertical vane grill which will always be so much more “Range Rover” to me than the plastic horizontal grill that replaced it. There is the exposed fuel filler cap, exposed bonnet hinges, and front door hinges, lower tailgate with exposed handle and drop down number plate carrier.
Finally it is finished in ultra rare Chamonix White, which shows its crisp and classic lines off to perfection. In 1986 there were finally a range of smart metallic paints like Caspian Blue and Cyprus Green, these were hugely popular after the drab 70s Range Rover colour palette, and white might look like a Police car after all, but the lady buyer knew the car would spend much time in Spain where white cars are preferred. Is this the Range Rover Classic for you?
If you are not a Range Rover Classic enthusiast or have no working knowledge of British Leyland/ Austin Rover/ Land Rover products from the 1970s and 80s, then you really should not be spending more than a few seconds looking at my listings, so please surf off and find something fibreglass or maybe German, as the build quality of these Range Rovers was truly shocking, disgraceful, and these vehicles were rusting when they were only a few years old, that’s fact not fiction.
I cannot answer random questions about how much welding does this car need, and how much would it cost to restore it. If you watch any car restoration programmes you know it always takes twice as much time as envisaged and costs far more money than budgeted. It is my honestly held opinion that as far as 1980s/ 90s Classic Range Rover go, that have not already undergone restoration, this car is definitely more solid than the vast majority that are languishing about out there. My opinion is vindicated by my experience selling my J-reg Roman Bronze Vogue EFI unseen last year where the Range Rover restorer arrived to pick up the vehicle for his client said that I had undersold it and it was far more solid and vastly more original than the cars he was used to dealing with. If you want to come and inspect the car and crawl underneath it, with my supervision you can, but you need to understand that EVERY classic Range Rover that has lived and been driven in the real world, that has not yet been restored is going to need new sills, inner and outer, inner front wings, repairs to the outriggers, sections on the front floorpans, attention to the bootfloor. That is a given. What I am saying is that plenty of Range Rover projects will require a hell of a lot more than that, like engine bulkhead, chassis welding, rear cross member, and replacement of rotten doors and tailgates. My car therefore presents as a comparatively “light” restoration project. With rot and welding repairs, you should appreciate that once you get poking and stripping and blasting, the rust hole often becomes three times as large as when you first poked your screw driver through. That IS the nature of Classic Range Rovers, if you don’t want rot buy a W126 Mercedes-Benz S-Class from the 1980s, but actually even these suffer from rotten front wings, pustular rear wheel arches, rotting rear bulkheads and jacking points, despite being hailed as the car that was the most over-engineered and had the very best build quality in the world – it is still made of steel that has had 40 years of the British climate and road salting… so if you don’t want rot just buy a 2022 Kia Picanto perhaps!
However solid or less than solid, my Range Rover is, it is nonetheless a great opportunity for the right enthusiast as it is so rare, untouched, original and blessed with great provenance.
