Project Range Rover 4.4 V8
PART ONE: Sam Skelton takes delivery of a 2002 Range Rover Vogue, bought from a reader in response to his pleas in print.
It must have seemed like serendipity to editor Martyn. At exactly the time Car Mechanics was looking for an L322 Range Rover as a project car, one appears in the garage of a colleague and former CM contributor. Bingo – the mag saves itself the cost of a project car when it can feature mine instead. It certainly seems like serendipity to me, given that one of the previous owner’s requests when I took on P44 JCP was that he would like to see the car in print.
The 2001 L322 was the third generation for Land Rover’s veritable toff-magnet, and my example will be replacing a tatty second generation car on my fleet. Designed under BMW’s parentage but with Ford ownership by the time of its launch, the L322 was seen when new as a leap above the standards set by the outgoing P38a model. Under the bonnet lay engines borrowed from the BMW E39 5-series; the petrol was a 4.4-litre M62 from the 540i and the diesel a 3.0 M57 six from the 530d. Many of the ECUs and electronic systems were also lifted from the Bavarian bahnstormer, and directly interchangeable with the E53 X5 to boot. With real luxury car credibility and go anywhere ability, the L322 soon became crucial for country types who had money to burn. In 2005 the BMW V8 gave way to Jaguar naturally-aspirated and supercharged units as part of a facelift intended to reduce Ford’s reliance on BMW hardware, and the TD6 engine would follow in 2006 with the launch of the first of the TDV8 models, the 3.6. The 4.4 TDV8 would be seen by many as the ultimate iteration of the theme – and would be the most popular model in the last years before Land Rover replaced the car with the fourth generation L405 for 2012.
My car is a ULEZ refugee – one of many cars soon to be charged £12.50 per day just for trips to the corner shop in plans to pull the zone very nearly out to the M25 – and former keeper Nick Lawrence couldn’t face the thought of selling it on eBay to become a builder’s van or a limotinted big-wheeled chav-chariot. He read my column for sister title Future Classics, in which I dropped some very subtle hints that I
