Buying the Cheapest Land Rover Discovery in the Country

 by Michael Satterfield - 07/05/2022

I have always had a love for the Land Rover brand, but out of the nearly 150 vehicles I have owned over the years, not one has been a Land Rover. While I do enjoy driving the latest and greatest from Land Rover, dropping $100,000 for a new Defender didn't really seem like a good idea. Plus we have several other vehicles already in the fleet, but when this 1996 Land Rover Discovery popped up at a local estate sale, I threw out a bid of $500...and won. 

I drove out to the village of Independence where the Land Rover was parked in front of an old barn on a impressive, yet overgrown, estate. The owner had recently passed away and the family was selling off the bulk of furniture and housewares. The house was built for entertaining and the owner had imported antiques from Europe and incorporated them into the design of the house including a grand fireplace that we were told came from Scotland. Like many grand homes, it had fallen into disrepair, at one time the pool and tennis courts were immaculate and the oak trees that lined the driveway were small, as evidenced by an areal photo of the property from the early 1980s. The next generation may have inherited the property, but they obviously didn't appreciate it the way the original owner had. 

We ended up also picking up an oak table and some large Persian rugs, it was an estate sale after all. But the main event was the dirty Rover parked out by the barn. Next to it was an equally forgotten Ford Explorer base model. I had bid on the Discovery, based only on a few photos so it was my first time seeing it in person. It was far better than the few photos online had led me to believe, not only was it a non-sunroof model (which means no leaky sunroofs), but it had the optional jump seats, grill guard, safari lights, and was in shockingly good condition, it was just really, really dirty. 

I called my friends over at Waco Towing to meet me at the estate as it was clear that a flatbed and a professional would make much quicker work of the extraction than I could with a winch and a rental trailer. Once up on the flatbed, I could see that some wasps had made their home in the wheel well, but even though it had sat for years, the underside of the Rover was in very good condition.

The driver dropped the Land Rover in Groesbeck just after dark, but I am looking forward to digging into this project and experiencing the awesomeness of living the luxury 90s SUV lifestyle. While I have no idea if it will even run at this point, for $500 it is going to be hard to go wrong even if it does require a new engine.

Be sure to follow along as the first major project will simply be cleaning up the years of moss and dirt that are currently caked on from sitting. Be sure to watch the full video of my day picking it up HERE.