-[upbeat music playing] -[Mike] This time...
Go on, you old girl, you can do it.
...we're after the next collectable Landy...
These Discovery Series 1s are absolutely blinding.
...but this Disco isn't hitting the dance floor any time soon.
The sunroof has been leaking. Look at the state of that! It's a mess, innit?
[Mike] In the workshop, Elvis has to take extreme measures...
I mean, this is turning into a pretty enormous job.
[Mike] ...to get this all-terrain vehicle back in peak condition.
Are we actually towing anything?
[opening theme music playing]
It's the start of a new week in the workshop and Elvis is just
finishing our trusty Discovery's annual service.
There you go, mate. Cup of tea. As promised. How are we getting on?
Nice one. Fully-serviced, mate. Good to go for another 10,000 miles.
Fantastic. It's done 120,000 miles and never missed a beat.
-It's really been a good workhorse for us, isn't it? -It really has, yeah.
As at home on a farmer's field as they are around
-Buckingham Palace, aren't they? -Yeah.
Great universal vehicles. Taken us everywhere. Towed everything.
-It's a great car. -It's got me thinking about
the Mk1 Discovery, because it's now a bona fide classic.
I've started to look online and I've stumbled upon one
that is sitting on a friend of ours' car lot.
-Russell. -Oh, yeah?
-Yeah. -Let's have a look.
It's almost the same color combination as this.
Champagne, but it's got the tan leather.
-Four and a half grand? -And, get this, you can't see it here,
because the writing is too small.
16,000 genuine miles.
Wow, that's amazing, but they are old cars and even though it's cheap
and it's low mileage, I'd be very, very careful.
Listen, if Russell says it's good,
it's well worth me going to take a peek.
It's always worth going to have a look at these things,
but if it's got too many issues,
just promise me you'll turn around and walk away.
-I will do. -[chuckles]
[upbeat music playing]
[Mike] Now, you are familiar
with me rattling around the country in this.
My trusty old Land Rover Discovery.
But the DNA of this car goes back 35 years.
All the way back, actually, to 1989,
when they launched the Discovery, at the Frankfurt Motor Show.
Everyone thought it was a great idea. It plugged the gap between
a Range Rover, the more luxurious car,
and the farmer's vehicle, the Defender.
They just slotted this one in between, really nicely.
The motoring press at the launch loved the Discovery.
It was a huge success for Land Rover.
Marketed to the middle classes as an off-road family car,
it sold more than 3,500 units
in its first three months.
And Land Rover were clever about how they built them.
They used the same chassis, engines and gearboxes
as the Range Rover, but they put
a cheaper, more practical body on the top.
There was also a row of extra foldaway seats
and a larger boot space than their other models.
So it's no surprise it's gone through five different generations.
There are around 260,000 of them
registered in the UK.
Now me, being that canny Wheeler Dealer,
I'm always looking for what's on the rise
and what's gonna be next, in terms of popularity.
And I've noticed a bit of interest recently
in early Land Rover Discoveries.
Now, I've managed to track one down through a contact of mine.
Russell. He's the guy that I bought a TVR off, in the past.
He's got a Series 1 Land Rover Discovery.
It's only done 16,000 miles.
Yeah, you heard me right. 16,000 miles.
For a 1997,
V8 automatic Land Rover Discovery.
That's ridiculously low for a car of this vintage
and all for just £4,500.
-[car honks] -So I'm hoping this is a real bargain,
rather than a rusty bag of bolts.
I absolutely love an old car site.
Russ? Come out.
-Ha ha ha! There he is. -Hello, Mike. How are you?
-I'm all right. How are you? -Yeah, I'm fine. I've missed you.
-And you. Good to see you again. -Nice to see you, as well.
So, this has come from...?
It's come on sale or return. Off another dealer.
I thought of you straight away.
Where are you gonna buy one that's done 16,000 miles?
Well, you're not, are you? It looks like it's done 160,000 miles.
No. It does. And it needs a bit of therapy.
I mean, it probably has been under a cover.
-You can see it's been under a tarp. -Yeah.
Either dragged on and off or been flapping around.
-It's absolutely destroyed the paintwork. -And it's sweated.
Lacquer peel here and there. Round the windows. The window rubbers have gone.
[Mike] Let's have a look inside, Russ.
Ha ha ha!
-Look at that interior! -Well, there you go.
-The leather, that's all original. -Yeah.
-The door cappings, all the wood,
it's all in lovely order.
But, yeah, I know what you're gonna say.
-Well, I can see a little bit of mold on the inside. -Yeah.
-The headlining has let go. -That's where that leaky roof is.
That's where it comes into play.
That's where you're getting your mold.
Them sunroofs did leak from new!
You know? That's probably why
-they had the tarpaulin over it. -Gotcha.
-Also got this problem here, on the top of this. -Yeah.
It's been sun-bleached. I mean, it's actually been sunburnt.
Wants a bit of after-sun on there!
-Can we have a look at the engine? -Yeah. Come on.
That's the 3.9 liter V8.
[engine starts]
-[engine runs smoothly] -Oh, Russell! Listen to that.
-Not a rattle. Not a bang. It does sound lovely. -That is...
I can really feel that that's a strong-sounding engine.
Right, mate. Mind your fingers. I'm over the moon.
Can I take it for a quick drive?
-We've got a slight problem there. -What's that?
Unfortunately, it isn't MOT'd, the vehicle.
Why has it got no MOT?
It hasn't actually failed the MOT.
It hasn't been submitted for one.
But the last MOT, it did have an advisory,
-which has got slightly worse, over time. -Show me.
Ah, right. Okay. Yeah.
Well, I can see why that would be
an MOT advisory, because the MOT inspector won't like the fact
that it's within 30 centimeters of the seatbelt anchor point.
He will probably fail it on that.
-I would have said so. -Yeah.
But there's a track down the end,
privately owned by a friend of mine.
He said you can drive it down there.
There's also a field you can give it a whiz around.
Ah, mate, that is fantastic.
[upbeat music playing]
I mean, it's just astonishing
how good it is and the steering wheel
I feel like I'm holding on to something just
pulled out of a factory.
I really do, the seats, it's so comfortable
and so firm.
Everything about it feels new
inside, it really does, except for that...
I do love a Land Rover.
These Discovery Series 1s are absolutely blinding.
They are so capable.
First impressions are this car is absolutely a proper find.
The only thing I need to try is
the low-ratio gearbox.
It's got two gearboxes. You've got your standard automatic gearbox.
Plus, you've got another box, which is called a transfer box,
that changes the gear ratio from high to low.
If you're in low, it means you can really go through
the muddy stuff, like these hills around me.
Go into neutral. Go from high, down to low.
Back into drive. Now I really have to jump on
the accelerator to make it go anywhere,
because it's in low ratio.
You can climb anything in low ratio.
Oh, this is boggy.
Come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on! Hee hee hee!
[contented sigh]
Go on, you old girl, you can do it.
Perfect.
[flapping]
Can you hear that?
That wind, you know what that is?
That because the sunroof won't shut.
And that's the tight flapping
on the sunroof in the wind.
So let's go back into...high.
[strains] Yay-yay-yay.
Ooh, that's gone... That's gone stiff.
I am doing that right, aren't I?
I'm trying to get the vehicle back into...
[strains] ...high ratio.
That's gonna need a bit of a service, because...
All right, finally, yeah, I've got there.
That is gonna need some attention.
Let's remember
Russ has only said that he's asking four and a half grand for it.
Four and a half grand for this!
My only worry is if there's rust hidden under the body,
which we'll only discover at the workshop,
but, at that price, it's probably worth taking the risk.
I just hope Elvis agrees with me.
Yeah, I can see you've had fun.
You're definitely buying it now! I ain't cleaning that.
Well, listen, your farmer's field is really gnarly.
It's a really good test of this vehicle.
There was one thing, though.
How did I know that was coming?
I went to put it in low ratio, because it was really boggy down there.
-It went in. It wouldn't come back out again. -Right.
So the transfer box is gonna need a big overhaul.
I weren't aware of that, but, yeah, I can well see it.
If you can make the four and a half grand a little bit keener,
I'll have Harry come and pick it up and get it to my workshop.
Four and a quarter. And that's it, Mike.
Hold out your hand, son. You've got a deal.
I am absolutely over the moon with that.
I've just bought a Discovery Series 1 with only
16,000 miles on the clock.
Blooming brilliant, thank you.
[upbeat music playing]
A couple of days later and transport captain Harry
has trailered our new Disco to the workshop.
So, come on then, let me introduce you to
our Series 1 Land Rover Discovery V8 automatic.
Nice. They are good cars.
-Did you drag it out of a bog? -Well, funnily enough, yes, I did.
-Why is it on a trailer? -It ain't got an MOT yet.
I'll explain that in a minute.
But the good news is this Buick-derived
V8 engine is mightily strong, it really is.
It has got that silky smooth automatic gearbox.
The only problem I can find with it is the gear lever
between high and low ratio is really stiff.
That's something I can look at but at the moment I can't look past the headlining.
Look at the state of that!
It looks like the sunroof has been leaking. Probably for quite a few years.
It's a bit of a mess, innit?
[Mike] All of that stuff is fixable.
I mean, even the door cards. They're burnt, as well.
Now, let me show you why this will not get an MOT.
Right, the biggest issue we have is right there, in front of you.
Oh, yeah. There's no way that will pass an MOT, like that.
I have got some good news. This is a repairable and replaceable panel.
I can get this for you.
The bits that we can see are little bubbles
on the roof, they're gonna need painting.
All right, let's have a proper inspection, see what else needs doing.
No worries, mate. Yeah, let's get on with it.
Now, there's no doubt this is
a wonderful example of a Series 1 Discovery.
I love the fact that it's the V8 version.
Thirsty engines, like that, may well be a dying breed,
but their DNA, in various forms, is in everything.
From Morgans to TVRs.
This particular one sounds great and is running really well,
so I'm not even thinking about that, for now.
What I am more concerned about is the state of what lies beneath.
[dramatic music playing]
This is the moment of truth.
How much rust are we gonna have to contend with?
These chassis rails along here often rust through,
but, actually, here, it looks in really good condition.
These outriggers here, that support the body from the chassis,
again, they often rust, but this is really good.
There are one or two little things that need a little attention.
Oh, hang on.
Oh, hello, that's not so good.
Okay, so there is some corrosion.
Up here. Oh, dear.
Actually, it's quite bad. There's a big rust hole.
Just up here.
The problem I've got there is it's so close to the point where
the body mounts to the chassis.
The only way to repair that is to actually
take the body of the car off, so I can get to it.
I mean, that's actually a pretty substantial job.
Mike reckons this Land Rover Discovery 1 Series is the next
collectable classic, but he could have lumbered me
with a whole load of work, fixing some nasty rust issues.
I'm gonna have to lift the body off the chassis.
Now, this is definitely a big job and it can feel daunting.
The engine is gonna remain attached to the chassis, down low,
whereas the body is gonna rise up,
up on the ramp and be taken away.
What we want to do is disconnect anything
that connects the engine to the body.
All we need to do is be sensible about the way that we do that.
A top tip here is to take a photo of all the pipes and hoses
in their original positions.
[camera clicks]
That way, you can make sure that
everything goes back where it belongs.
These old Discoveries are built on what we call a "Ladder chassis".
They have these two long, steel structures, running all the way down
the length of the car, connected by these crossmembers,
making it look a little bit like a ladder.
In today's world, modern cars are built on
something called a "Monocoque", where the chassis
and the car's body are built out of one piece.
It does make it safer and a lighter weight, too.
The advantage, though, of this is that,
by disconnecting just ten bolts around the car,
I can separate one half from the other.
Now it's time to lift the top off.
[lift whirs]
I'm hoping I've disconnected everything.
If not, the lift could tear wires or hoses apart and cause problems,
which will take a lot of time and money to fix.
Just a little bit more... and I think we're good.
Right, there we go. The two halves of the car are now separated.
That means I can now see exactly what we're working with
and just how bad this problem is.
And it is quite bad.
I mean, it's actually worse than I thought it was.
In fact, where on earth has that gone?
[laughs] There you go. That's how bad it is.
That's the mount between the chassis and the body,
which should have risen up, with the body of the car,
just like it has on that side,
but it's so heavily corroded, it's actually completely come away.
Stayed on the chassis. I need to get rid of it.
Probably need to buy a new panel for that.
A good job Mike is out on his shopping trip.
I'll text him to add a bulkhead repair panel
to his ever-growing list.
I mean, this is turning into a pretty enormous job.
[Mike] I'm just hoping I can find everything we need,
without knocking a huge hole in our profits.
I've forwarded on a list of parts that I need to my mate, Paul.
He owns Britpart. Hopefully, he's gonna prepare everything
for when I get there.
Let's hope we don't give my credit card too much of a hammering.
[upbeat music playing]
Look at all these classic Landies under one roof.
I'm in off-road heaven.
-Paul. -Oh, hello, Mike.
-How are you doing? -Good to see you again.
[Mike] These guys do everything.
They refurb and repair every make and model of Land Rover
and they also ship parts all around the world.
Paul is the head honcho. What he doesn't know
about four by fours isn't worth knowing.
I've come to your toy shop. This looks amazing.
-I know. -It looks really good.
I've got this Series 1 Land Rover.
It's an incredibly low-mileage car.
It is a bit frayed around the edges,
-so it does need your help. -Not a problem.
I did send you a list, quite a comprehensive list,
of some of the parts that we need.
-I've got the list. -And then I need some more serious bits.
I've got the age-old problem of the leaky sunroof.
-The electric shower! -[laughing]
Fantastic. Yeah, I do need to repair those.
The electronics can be tricky, but we can help you.
-Right. Lead me to your parts! -Let's go and have a look.
[Mike] Paul has managed to source most of the bits I need from the whopping
140 million quids' worth of stock kept on site.
So... I think that's what you need.
That is exactly what we need, yeah.
Pretty brilliant. What a nice repair panel that'll be.
-How much are they? -About 35 quid.
[blows raspberry] A bargain, yeah, absolutely.
Okay, erm, the sunroof.
-Sunroof parts? Okay. We'll go here. -Yes.
Lovely.
[Mike] Of course, for the parts that regularly fail,
demand often outstrips supply.
[Paul] This is the ECU for the sunroof.
When the sunroof leaks, it gets water into the ECU and fries it.
Right, Okay. Let's have a look at that, then.
So this will be a brand-new ECU. Very good. Look at that.
Do I need anything else?
I would swap the switch, as well.
Pretty sure the switch will be fried. I think that will be it.
This is the last one we've got in the world.
-Really? Seriously? -Yeah.
Last sunroof switch for a Discovery 1.
Wow. Right, okay.
Well, let's gather those bits up
and work out a price for the total.
It's like a one-stop shop, coming here
and getting all the parts we need.
Quite incredible, £900
to fully restore a Land Rover.
I mean, it's an absolute bargain.
Right, let's get all this stuff back to Elvis in the workshop.
That boy is gonna feel like it's Christmas.
[Elvis] While I wait for Santa Mike to return with his sack of goodies,
I'm trying to sort that dodgy high-low ratio bit of the gearbox.
Right, now that I've got the body off the chassis,
I've got much better access to this, which is the selector lever
for the high-low ratio part of the automatic gearbox.
Mike has already told me there's a problem and I can see what it is.
It's seized solid.
When you move that lever, it should be transmitted through this linkage,
down here, to the transfer box,
but, at the moment, it's fully stuck.
Not that uncommon, people don't use them often,
so I'm hoping I can service it and fix the problem
without having to spend any money.
My first port of call is to open up the transfer box
and see what state the selector pin inside is in.
[upbeat music playing]
Right. I was fully expecting
that shaft in there to be completely seized solid,
but, actually, that feels like brand-new.
The way it should work is that little selector pin
sits inside the transfer box
and, as you move the lever in the cockpit,
it just goes between that high and low ratio set of gears.
So it means...
it must be in here, where we've got the seizure.
I wonder if it's this rod,
the selector rod inside the transfer box, that's actually seized.
Oh, it has seized.
Yeah, that's solid in there.
If I can't get it freed up, we could be looking at a much trickier
and more expensive job
and no-one wants that.
That's too stiff to move by hand,
but with a little bit of gentle persuasion...
I'm hoping it can be loosened off with a bit of
brute force and ignorance.
Okay, so I've just moved it now, using the lever.
I'm pretty sure that's the fix.
It's probably not that uncommon.
It hasn't been used for so long, that piece of metal
has been in that position for years and years.
Just freeing it up has now brought it back
to the way it should operate. Which means
all I've got to do is clean up the two surfaces,
the seal between them and put the whole thing back together.
Hopefully, it was just a bit of dirt.
I need to reassemble the transfer box,
then I can see if that fix has worked
and saved us a load of cash and extra graft.
There we go. I mean, that works perfectly.
For now, that's all the chassis work that I need to do done,
before I start tackling the body itself, but, first,
I'm gonna give it a proper good clean-up.
Which gives me an excuse to enjoy the sunshine outside.
Didn't they push stuff like this on The World's Strongest Man?
This is called TFR, Traffic Film Remover.
It's a reasonably aggressive detergent
that's designed to break down most of the dirt
I will then get the rest off, hopefully, with a jet-washer.
Traffic film is all the environmental pollutants
you'd find in the air and on the road surfaces.
Things like unburnt fuel, brake dust,
oil and soot all get caked
into your chassis and this stuff helps to clean it off.
I'm really happy with that. I'm gonna let it dry off in the sunshine,
before I get it back in the workshop.
[honks horn]
Mate, come and have a look at all of this.
So I've done a proper shopping trip
and I've got a massive haul of Land Rover parts for us.
-Oh, well done. -It wasn't too expensive on our cards.
That is a busy haul.
[Mike] Everything in there, rubbers, bumpers, brake parts.
Plus the important bit that you texted me about.
Oh, well done, mate. I'm ready for that, that's good.
The body mount.
And look at this patch-repair panel
for that hole, why it failed the MOT.
Perfect. I was thinking, I've booked the car in
for some paintwork to be done.
I might get them to do that, at the same time,
because I've got so much else to do.
Lovely. Well, talking of stuff to do,
I've just driven past the chassis. It's looking good.
It is. It's drying in the sun, because I've had to jet-wash
all that dirt that you put on it on your test drive
and having got rid of all the mud, the chassis is in a great condition.
I'm glad it's in great nick. Any repairs to that could have eaten into our profits.
What are you gonna do next, then?
Once that's dry, I'll get it back in the workshop.
I've got some repairs to do to the body itself.
Then I can reattach the two. Then I'll tackle those sunroofs.
Right, I'm glad you said the sunroofs,
because Paul, at Britpart, reckons, because they leak,
it definitely would have damaged the ECU and the switch.
So, in here, you're gonna find both a replacement ECU for the sunroof and a switch.
-Perfect. Nice one, mate. -Right, give us a hand.
But there's no rest for the wicked.
With the sunburnt door cards now off the car, I'm heading straight out
to see if I can get them resprayed.
No easy job, as they'll need to seamlessly match
the rest of the interior, so I'm hoping my mate, Mark,
at Technispray Paints in Birmingham, can help.
Hey Mark, hopefully, you can sort me out, with my door cards.
Yeah, that's fine. Obviously, we can have a look at it on the spectrometer.
I can measure it. We'll see if it comes up as a standard color.
It probably isn't, which means we'll have to do
-a custom color match. -Wow.
We'll match it exactly to how it is now.
I suppose, down the production line,
it would have had an actual color and a number.
It would have been a proper color.
Obviously over time, it's aged, so it is its own color now.
Probably use this corner here? Looks nice and clean.
-Yeah, let's go for it. -Okay.
[Mike] The human eye can distinguish about 100,000 different colors.
This spectrometer can distinguish two million.
It uses sensors to analyze
the amount of radiation that has been absorbed
by the molecules of the paint, which gives us an exact
breakdown of how the color has been created.
Once he's got the breakdown,
Mark tries to replicate the color in paint.
This is the carousel. We've got ourselves a formulation off the computer,
I'll use that with the ingredients.
Hopefully, it will come out somewhere close to your color.
Excellent.
It's a bit like going to your color matcher, isn't it? In a DIY store.
It's a version of that. The only difference is that,
if you take it in there, they'll give you the nearest color they've got,
whereas here, we'll try and get it absolutely spot-on for you.
Right, that's it, then. We'll put that in the shaker,
give it a shake, spray it out and see what it looks like.
[Mike] The paint-shaker operates between 100rpm and 700rpm.
It combines our bespoke color blend
with a binding agent, to produce a sprayable paint.
Mark then sprays our color onto a plastic test panel.
But as the shade will change while it dries, he bakes it in an oven
to speed up the process.
[Elvis] Back in the workshop, I'm ticking off some of the massive list of jobs.
The body has already been given a lick of paint.
It's been reunited with the chassis.
The replacement bulkhead repair panel has been fitted.
The new rear-wheel arch is in, too,
so that will no longer be an MOT failure.
Now for the trickiest task, working out what's wrong with our sunroof.
The sunroofs from these Discoveries are prone to leaking.
This one, the front one from our car, is no exception.
You can see, from all this tape that's been put around the outside,
to try and seal it, at some point in its past.
What's happened here is the mechanism,
that holds the glass in place
and allows it to slide up and down the runners, has broken.
That's causing that big gap to open up.
Now if I connect up a battery...
...I can check that the motor itself is working just fine.
There you go.
As I open it up, you can tell exactly where that's broken.
Just in there. The problem is that's a very difficult thing to fix.
So I've found myself, online,
for £55, a replacement second-hand one.
Unfortunately, that didn't come with a motor,
but I now know this motor works.
I can take this one off this unit
and put it onto that one, when we get it back in the car.
[Mike] In Birmingham, our paint-mix test patch is out of the oven.
So it's the moment of truth.
Will we have a perfect match?
Okay, Mike, so this is the color that the computer has given us.
[Mike] Oh, Mark, look at that! That color match is perfect.
So now I've got a color match, where do I go next?
Now you go and see Simon in the spray booth.
Well, mate, I really appreciate all your help so far.
-Thank you very much. -Fantastic.
-You must be Simon. -Hello, there.
-What have we got? -We have got your paint.
It's called Brewers Brown.
[laughs] Oh, get in!
-Yeah, I like that. Brewers Brown! -Good stuff.
Yes, good stuff. I'll be able to sell that after, won't I?
To prep the panels for painting we're cleaning them with a water-based solvent
and then a stronger, vinyl prep solution.
That will mean they're completely free of any dirt,
grease or dust particles.
Then it's finally time for their coat of Brewers Brown paint.
Rather than just respraying the sunburnt top section,
it's better to do the whole lot to give a nice even finish.
Simon, are you happy with the coverage?
-Happy with that. -How much has all this cost me for both panels?
Both panels? £85.
An absolute bargain!
-Thank you very much, Simon. I really appreciate it. -My pleasure.
[Mike] Simon is a pro, so I can already tell
my door cards are gonna look spot-on.
[Elvis] Our replacement sunroof is stripped down and ready to go on the car.
If you're attempting this at home, I've got a top tip for you.
These drainage pipes here connect up to the underside of our sunroof unit
and then run down the A pillar of the car
and out through the bottom to get rid of any excess water.
Before I fit the new unit, I just want to blow them through
with a compressed-air line, to make sure they're not
blocked with any dirt and debris.
You probably won't have an air line at home, but a can of compressed air
from a DIY shop will work just as well.
And look at all the crud that's coming out.
With the lines clear and the replacement sunroof prepped,
I can set about fitting it.
It just bolts into position.
And, finally, the motor from our original sunroof can go into place.
Before I do, I'm just gonna pop a little bit of grease
onto the gear, just to make sure that it's well lubricated.
Once that's done,
the final things to fit are the ECU and switch that Mike found.
Hopefully, we're ready to catch some rays.
[upbeat music playing]
Awesome.
And all for just 55 quid.
Love it.
All fixed.
Elvis! Fella! Come and have a look at how good these are.
-Oh, what have you got? -Remember the door cards?
-Yes. -Right? Burnt,
-a little bit crusty. -Horrible, yeah.
-Ta-da! -You got new ones?
-Sweet. -No. That is the same door card.
I found this company in Birmingham.
Not only have they color-matched and painted 'em,
the burn marks are all gone, as well.
That's amazing. They look brand-new.
Yeah, delighted with those.
We've now got a car that's painted. Gonna look good.
The only thing that let it down was the interior.
Those things are gonna finish it off nicely.
I've been thinking about what we can do to celebrate this car at the end.
I've been thinking, the Discovery was famous for being the best what?
Cricketer?
Ian Botham. It was the best all-rounder, wasn't it?
You could literally put straw in the back,
plough a field, clean it off and then, in the evening, go to the opera
or a nice fancy restaurant.
-I'm thinking we do the same. -A fancy restaurant? Yeah.
Well, let's get it muddy first and then we clean it off.
-Then a posh restaurant? -I'll try and find us a posh restaurant to go to.
-Love it. I'll get these in. -All right. You get them bolted up.
-Good work. -Right, I'll find us somewhere to go.
[Elvis] All that's left is for me to get the final bits and pieces onto our Landy,
so it's ready to hit the road.
First up, Mike's freshly-painted door cards.
Right, here we go. It's a fairly simply process,
but there are a couple of things to look out for.
First of all, this sheet, of what looks like pretty cheap plastic,
actually has an important job to do.
It's a draught-excluder, to make sure that any air
that passes down things like window seals or gaps around door handles
doesn't find its way inside the car.
We need to make sure that stays intact.
The other thing that always happens when people fit these is
these little, cheap, plastic clips,
that hold the door card on, get broken.
So, before you give it any pressure, you've got to make sure that
the little clips are all nicely lined up
in the holes that they go into,
before you, eventually, push it into place.
Then it's just a case of screwing the handles and speakers back in
and that's another job done.
Unfortunately, I've saved the most awkward task till last.
Fitting a new seal to the rear window.
Now, one of the foibles of the Series 1 Discovery was that
the rear screen was sealed in place, rather than bonded,
more like a windscreen.
Of course ours, like many others over time, has perished,
but Mike has managed to find me a new one at his parts visit,
so all I've got to do is get it in.
Once the new rubber seal is in place, I've got a little window fitter's trick,
which involves feeding this rope around the edge of the seal.
The purpose of this rope is that it acts almost like
a continuous tie lever, as we fit the glass into the back door,
just easing the rubber seal over the lip of the door,
making the whole process a little bit easier.
I say easier, from experience, these things can be a nightmare to fit,
so I'm getting my mate, Dan, to give me a hand.
Right, come on, then, Dan.
My job inside the car is to finesse the lip of the seal
around the edge of the window frame using the rope.
Just give it a little shove. About here. That's it.
...while Dan applies a bit of gentle persuasion.
With a bit of to-me-to-you-ing, we can coax it into position.
That's it. A little bit of a tap.
Okay.
That's it.
Yeah. Nearly.
And, eventually, I think we're there.
Lovely. Nice one, mate.
Thanks, Dan. You can pop those off. Awesome.
I'm so pleased that's now in.
I've still got a couple of side windows to do,
a few more bits inside
and then we're nearly ready to show it off to Mike.
[Mike] When I found our Discovery 1 Series,
it had spent more time trapped in a barn than out in the fields.
It's been under a tarp. It's absolutely destroyed the paintwork.
-So Elvis... -Oh, hello, that's not so good.
...had to go to extreme lengths to fix its rust issues.
Right, there we go. The two halves of the car are now separated.
[Mike] While I set about sprucing up its appearance.
Oh, Mark, look at that! That color match is perfect.
Now our hard work has got it looking like new,
but how much has this transformation cost us?
I bought the car for £4,250.
The parts for my shopping trip came to £900.
The replacement sunroof was £55.
Painting the door card was £85.
Retrimming the deadliner £260.
And painting the welding the body £1800.
Given us a grand total of £7350.
Which is a price well worth shelling out on a Landy with only
16,000 miles on the clock.
So much so, I'm already getting lots of interest from would-be buyers,
after putting it up for sale.
[upbeat music playing]
But, before I do a deal, I want to put the car through its paces,
in the habitat it was built for.
The countryside.
So, I've asked Elvis to drive it over to an estate
in the heart of rural Lincolnshire.
-[Elvis] Hello, mate. -Put it down there.
That looks absolutely fantastic.
-We know how to turn out a vehicle, don't we? -It's come up well.
Look at the paintwork on the bonnet and the roof.
-Yeah. -New rubbers on it as well.
-Did you do that patch repair? -That's been done.
Obviously it's passed an MOT, as well.
-You're gonna love the way it drives. -Looks fantastic.
-What are we doing here, mate? -Right, so this is Revesby.
It's an estate. It's over 6,000 acres. I know the estate manager.
You know, I roll with the aristocracy, sometimes.
And I told him about the Mk1 Disco.
I was talking to him about just how versatile they are.
I said, "I'd like to show it off. Can we come down?"
-He said, "If you do a bit of work." -So what are we doing?
First, we're gonna get the Discovery, hook it up to this trailer.
Me and you are gonna take some logs
from here to the other side of the reservoir.
-[laughing] -Then some other stuff.
-What about that fancy dinner? -We have to earn it.
-I thought this was gonna be a nice, relaxing day. -No, no.
We've got to work, got to earn it.
Right. Reverse up. I'll be here for you.
[Mike] I always say there's no such thing as a free lunch,
so let's set about earning ours, starting with loading up the logs.
Keep coming, keep coming.
Yeah, I reckon about there.
Lovely.
Nice one, Tom.
Then we can hit the road and find out if our Landy
has the power to handle this load.
Are we actually towing anything?
Check we've still got the trailer!
I didn't leave it behind, did I?
-No. Good, isn't it? -[Mike] That is fantastic.
-Two tones of logs there. You can't feel it. -You can't feel it, at all.
Everything about this vehicle is so refined.
For a car from 1997, well, it's just like new, isn't it?
The inside feels like new. The outside looks fantastic now, with the paintwork.
-Yeah. -Headliner, all that has been done, as well.
It is getting a little bit rutty here so let's go from high to low.
-You've repaired this now. Yeah? -Yes.
It turned out to be a really simple fix on the linkage. It had just seized up.
-So it only took me five minutes in the end. -Oh, there you go.
Right, so now we're in low ratio,
so we've got four-wheel drive.
That's what this thing is for.
It's so universally usable in so many different situations.
[upbeat music playing]
We're not just cruising over this stuff.
We're cruising over it with air-conditioning!
On electric-heated,
if we wanted, luxury, leather seats.
Electric windows all round. Electric mirrors.
It is flipping brilliant.
It's a jack of all trades. It can literally do anything.
I forgot how good they were.
And this one is... is to die for, it really is.
-What a lovely place to explore with it. -It's great, isn't it?
Right. Okay, mate.
[Mike] That's test one passed with flying colors.
Time to radio Tom to receive our next challenge.
-[beeps] -Tom, it's Mike and Elvis.
We've dropped off those logs for you.
"Lovely, that's great. If you could pop over to the deer park, please.
En route, get some fence posts and just drop them off in there.
And then, whilst in there, just have a check around
see if you can see any baby fawns."
Yeah, absolutely, Tom. We look forward to doing that.
-Nice one. We are. -Definitely earning that fancy meal, aren't we?
[Mike] Cor, these country folk work hard!
Normally, you'd need to cart these fence posts in a trailer.
Nice one, mate.
-Lovely. -Just about.
But, with the seats down,
our 1 Series swallows them with no problem.
Leaving us to tackle our third mission,
putting the Landy's off-road capabilities to the test.
[birdsong]
Tom was telling me that, back in the day,
they would have used these vehicles
exactly in this way,
to drive around the grounds, to look at the fawns,
to make sure that they look at the perimeters, that nothing has got out.
It's the perfect car for this. It can take on all terrains.
Tom has told me, over the 6,000 acres,
there's, like, 600 beautiful deer in here.
They've recently had baby fawns.
He said what we've got to do is
keep a look-out for the baby fawns, because they are tiny.
He said, "You don't want to run them over."
-Is that one over there? Or is that a log? -Another little one.
-They do look like logs. -That is one. You can see his ears sticking up.
Little ears sticking up. Basking in the sun.
-Look. -Oh, yeah. Look at that!
-Yeah, he's tiny. -He's tiny, look at him,
just nestled under the tree, having a sleep.
[Elvis] Oh, honestly, mate, they look so cute.
I feel like I'm on the set of the Disney movie! Don't you? It is kind of weird, isn't it?
That's our work for the day nearly done,
but there is still one important job to do.
I've received a final offer for the car,
so I've organized a video call with the would-be owner, another Mike,
to hopefully finalize the deal.
Hello, mate. How are you?
Not bad, not bad at all.
There is a reason why we're doing this conversation on a computer.
You're not here, physically. Why is that?
At the moment, I'm about 80 miles offshore, in the middle of the sea.
[laughter]
On a gas platform.
Oh, well, good for you, good for you.
We hope that you're gonna be delighted with the vehicle that we've got.
We've really put it through its paces. We've been over rufty-tufty ground.
We've done it all in the luxurious comfort of this
Series 1 Land Rover Discovery,
that has only got 16,700 miles on the clock.
It feels like it's brand-new.
Excellent.
I did have over 41 Land Rovers, at one point.
What?
I've got 13, at present, so they are quite addictive.
[laughter]
Well, listen, you must be Mr. Land Rover.
That is absolutely fantastic.
Well, I think it would be a worthy addition to your fleet.
We agreed a price of £9,800.
Are you still happy with that price?
I most certainly am.
Listen. Hold out your virtual hand. You've got yourself a cracking deal.
-[laughs] -There you go, well done.
Thanks again, Michael. We really appreciate it.
What a cracking end to the day and a nice little profit for us.
I suppose I'd better treat Elvis to that fancy meal now.
But only if he can prove that his sunroof repair is watertight.
If I get drenched, he can forget about that dinner.
I've got all the windows up. I've got the roof shut.
-Well, go on, then. Let's give it a try. -Good luck.
[laughs]
Yeah, it's good. Yeah.
-Good? -Yeah, it's not leaking, at all. It's really good.
Good.
Well, as Elvis blows off the dust, after a hard day's work,
it gives us time to reflect just how far we've come.
We originally bought this old Land Rover Discovery for just
£4,250.
We've sold it for £9,800 and quite rightly so.
Look at it! It looks like a new vehicle.
We've had a fantastic day around this country estate.
We've done that low mileage proud.
then join us again soon on Wheeler Dealers.
Ta-ra. Oh. No.
I've got to take this boy out for dinner, haven't I? He's earned it.