The seller of today’s Nice Price or No Dice Range Rover County claims it to be “the original luxury SUV that defined an era.” It’s in jaw-dropping condition for its age, but will we find its price equally eye-popping?
Walking down the gas-lit streets of nineteenth-century Paris, Joseph Pujol most likely passed his Parisian neighbors relatively unrecognized and unnoticed. On the stage at the Moulin Rouge, however, where he went by the name Le Pétomane, or “fart maniac,” he delighted audiences with his amazing ability to form tunes, make whistles, and extinguish candles through the unique effort of sucking air in and blowing it out of his butt. What a time it must have been to be alive.
Much like Monsieur Pujol, the 1997 BMW 318ti we looked at yesterday maintains a secret hidden from those not in the know until the time comes to exploit it. The secret is that the milquetoast 1.9-liter four installed under the hood at the factory was, at some point, replaced with a vastly more powerful 3.2-liter S52 straight-six, making the car much more hairy-chested than one might imagine at a casual glance. Nice as that hidden gem might be, it proved no secret that the vast majority of you felt it unworthy of its $22,990 asking price. That was made abundantly clear in the 90% ‘No Dice’ loss the Bimmer suffered.
British steel
So many great things have come out of the British Isles: the Magna Carta, Shetland wool sweaters, creepy, brown peat-bog people, and, of course, the stunningly beautiful and wildly engaging Jaguar XKE. In fact, Great Britain has given the world many cars, trucks, and motorcycles that are beloved by their owners despite their emphatic embrace of questionable build quality and a reputation for poor material durability.
Take today’s 1993 Range Rover County LWB as an example. Alluringly handsome and possessing the potential for capable off-road hijinks, the original Range Rover offers a siren song to the classic 4X4 aficionado. These trucks also have a reputation for poor workmanship and frustratingly frequent failures that can complicate the ownership experience.
With its long wheelbase chassis and 4.2-liter ex-Buick V8 under the hood, this Eastnor Green beauty is the final, and likely most desirable iteration of the storied British off-roader. That’s a point not lost on the seller, who describes the truck as being “the ultimate expression of vintage Range Rover comfort.” Nice!
Range anxiety
Naturally, if you’re going to go with any classic car, truck, or bike, regardless of nation of origin, you’re going to want to get the best example you can find or your budget can allow (more on that in a minute).
This Range Rover appears to be in stunningly good order for its age and the manufacturer’s reputation for mechanical malarky. The ad claims it is in immaculate condition, with only a “light patina” of wear on the interior surfaces. The pictures prove that point, showing exceptionally clean bodywork and paint, paired with iconic tri-spoke alloy wheels color-matched to the body. Everything seems to be present and accounted for, right down to the perforated plastic lip under the front valance. On most other first-generation Range Rovers, those seem to get knocked off with regularity. Above that is a bull bar that is a take-it-or-leave-it proposition, but it does lend the nose a bit of an aggressive, furrowed brow countenance.
According to the ad—and equally impressive for an old Range Rover—everything under the skin is working as it should. The mechanicals are the aforementioned 4.2-liter V8, which in this model year managed a reasonable 190 horsepower and more impressive 280 pound-feet of torque. The cost for that engine moving the truck’s 4,575-pound weight is an over-familiarity with the gas pump, as these average around 12 mpg.
County seats
With 144,973 claimed miles, the interior might be expected to show some wear or age-related degradation, but neither is evident in the provided pictures. Instead, the tan leather upholstery, luxurious pile carpeting, and generous burl wood trim all appear to be in stunningly good condition. Yes, this is an old-school cabin with dials and buttons (so many randomly-placed buttons) instead of sleek screens, but that’s just part of its charm. Plus, there are five—count ’em, five—air vents in the dash.
Other additions include a more modern stereo head unit angled jauntily skyward below the dash, and an ancient hard-wired cell phone that’s so quirkily charming that picking it up, one might expect someone to come on the line saying “op-or-a-tor, to whom do you wish to make a call?”
Aside from some rumpled carpeting in the load area, everything appears to be as tidy as one could want, and if everything truly works as well as the seller claims, this should make for a comfortable and capable classic.
Rule Britannia
A clean title and the seller’s advocacy of this being the perfect vehicle for “collectors or enthusiasts seeking a genuine Range Rover Classic,” make this a unique opportunity for those Range Rover fans. That is, however, if we can get over the $28,000 asking price. See? I told you we’d get back to that.
What do you think about this classic County (no, I don’t know why they named it that, either) and that $28K asking price? Does that feel fair, given the truck’s presence and presentation? Or is that too much for even the nicest first-gen Range Rover we are likely to find?
You decide!
Los Angeles, California, Craigslist, or go here if the ad disappears
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