HCOTY Nominee: 1983 Land Rover Defender 110
Nominated by: Braff
As Seen in the Post: AutoTrader Find of the Week [Oct. 9 2009]
Here at Hoon HQ, we love cars of all shapes and sizes… be they fast, slow, ugly, beautiful, big, small, short, long, rare, common, or a combination of all those things. Wait… what if we actually found a combination of all those things.
Well in one of our earliest posts, I did just that – in the form of a gray market 1983 Land Rover One Ten which was listed for sale in Florida via the Trader of Autos dot com.
How can one vehicle be all those non-fancy words I just used? Well… let’s take a dive in, pith-helmet first.
Fast and Slow – This One Ten is fitted with a 3.5L V8 engine which made between 100 and 140 hp when new. The One Ten is not a Miata, and this is not a lot of power for a vehicle this size, thus it would be slow. However, were I to take it out to the desert it would certainly be much faster than the aforementioned Miata – hence the One Ten is both fast and slow, depending on the condition of the terrain you are driving it on.
Ugly and Beautiful – Let’s be honest, this is no GranTurismo we are staring at – even the Kia Borrego (a fine modern SUV actually, with more power and a much nicer interior than the Land Rover) has some nicer lines on it. However, let’s not forget what website we are on… this is Hooniverse.com and this 1983 One Ten is ruggedly beautiful, like the sport utility version of Daniel Craig Hugh Jackman me um, you get what I mean… let’s pretend this last sentence never happened.
Short and Long – You notice how the name of this particular vehicle is “one ten”, while that is not some fancy term conjured up by a drab British marketing department. It refers to the wheelbase. What else has a 110” wheelbase? The Toyota Tacoma regular cab, NASCAR Cup cars, and the BMW X3 – not exactly ’59 Caddies are they. The Land Rover One Ten is a short vehicle. However, it is also somewhat long – why do I say that? ANY vehicle which fits NINE passengers can’t be that short. Which other vehicles fit nine passengers? How about the Chevy Suburban and Ford Econoline Vans… quite long vehicles.
Rare and Common – Look at the pictures, this vehicle is right-hand drive. For those of you reading in areas ruled by a queen, that is not how we do things in the Republic of We’re-Awesomestan. That tidbit, coupled with the fact that Land Rover One Tens were not legally imported here until 1985, makes this particular 1983 example even rarer. However, this website IS beamed out to those of you around the globe – rotting Land Rover carcasses litter the English countryside like the fallen aqueducts of ancient Rome. It is not just the UK though, Land Rovers serve a utilitarian purpose around the globe – and have so for years before they turned into the vehicle of choice for aspiring Real Housewifes around the country.
This 1983 Land Rover One Ten is the best of many worlds… it embodies, in my mind, what I love about the type of cars we chat about on Hooniverse. If I had the spare change (and if the listing were still active) I would be roaming the vast plains of Orange County, stalking my next trophy In-N-Out wrapper – all while wearing a dirty pith helmet and a hooniverse t-shirt. I love this car, and it gets my vote for the first ever Hooniverse.com Car of the Year.