To a certain extent, the new Land Rover Defender is not exactly a direct replacement for its legendary predecessor. Some may argue about that but in our eyes, the new iteration of the off-roader is a far more advanced, sophisticated, and luxurious vehicle than a Defender should be. That doesn’t mean the new model is bad, not at all, it simply has a very different philosophy.
But why do we talk about the differences between the classic and new Defender? Because we stumbled upon a video on YouTube, which shows what is easily the most beat-up Defender we’ve ever seen. And our first thought was – can a modern Defender be still running in a similar condition? With so many electronics and complicated systems, we highly doubt that.
Here’s what we are talking about. The Passy channel on the world’s largest video sharing platform filmed an absolutely disastrous Land Rover Defender in Congo. It is from the 1994 model year and has a diesel engine under the hood. Its current condition is way beyond what you can even imagine but the machine is still running and operational.
Of course, if you want to start the engine, you have to push the off-roader. Probably there’s no starter in the engine bay and once the ignition is activated, a gentle push starts the ignition compression engine. There’s no fuel tank, instead, the diesel fuel is stored in a large tube next to the engine. We can’t say the engine runs smoothly but when revved, it (almost) sounds like a healthy diesel mill.
We know nothing about the history of this Defender and how it ended up looking that bad. However, we know older diesel engines, especially ones with no turbochargers and exhaust gas filtration systems, are virtually indestructible. The exterior is so rusty that it looks like an art installation rather than an actual vehicle. However, we are confident this Defender has many years left on the road.
