While not as exotic, I channeled my inner-McQueen and felt that the often tweaked 1997 Land Rover Defender 90 that I have owned since new, was now worthy of a trek of it’s own.  Having only driven as far as LA-SF-LA in the Defender, what I was about to embark on could have proven to be uncomfortable, daunting, definitely loud, but necessary.  I’ve had the Defender apart in so many stages of tweak and undress, that I figured—saving some internal combustion disaster, I could figure out anything that could go wrong, or at least get in touch with someone who could.

Recent updates have included the addition of a new 4.6L LR motor, built by Nigel at British Eurotech, the fiendishly complicated installation of a Safety Devices full external roll cage by Rob Phillips, and the already detailed full Dynamat and carpet treatment of 2009.

The plan was to head from LA to Sedona, AZ in day one, explore Sedona, then head to the Grand Canyon, and from there, to Vegas and home.

With two Pelican cases grafted to the Garvin basket on the roof, the trip to Sedona started off easy, without the increased wind noise I was expecting.  Taking Hwy 40, mirroring Route 66 as much as possible, things got heavy after dinner as I left Kingman, AZ.  Light snow got heavy around Williams, AZ and by 11pm, it was nearly full white out conditions, complete with jackknifed big rigs, unplowed interstate, and 40 MPH top speed.  Like many urban Defender owners, I hadn’t ever locked the Diff on the Defender, and with a solid clunk I was moving as the only vehicle for 50+ miles of snowy roadway.  I have newfound respect for the Defender, as we cruised down a very twisty Hwy 89A into Sedona, arriving after 330am.

With the Defender now thoroughly coated in mud, salt and grime, street cred was high as we explored some of the knee high mud bogs on some of Sedona’s famous jeep trails, we tried Soldier Pass.  With “fear of breaking something” the only thing holding me back, I continued to be impressed by the Defender’s nimble footing in pretty hairy conditions.   The dirt parking lot at San Onofre State Beach is as far off road as the Defender had previously been.

From there it was a bit of a backtrack, under clear skies this time, heading to the Grand Canyon from Sedona.  With lots of snow and ice in and around the canyon, hiking was as gnarly as the ride to Sedona, but the clear skies and single digit temps made for beautiful vistas.  After two days at the Canyon, with the Defender unmoved, and the El Tovar Hotel as base camp, it was time to head to Vegas, via the Hoover Dam and the Skywalk—a glass shelf that you can walk on out over the canyon—close to Hoover Dam than the South Rim where we were.

As I loaded the roof back up, and got in to leave, the beast wouldn’t start, and what I guessed was a faulty ignition, with no Land Rover dealer within 250 miles.  With a degree of indignity, I had the Defender towed back to Williams, where I found Alfredo at Sandoval Auto Repair, who within 2 hours, was able to jump fuses and get the Defender back on the road, headed to Vegas.

The tow, and Williams detour meant that the Skywalk was an impossibility on this trip, and while the Defender is quirky and prone to issues, that’s what a road trip is all about.  If I had done this in a modern sedan, I wouldn’t have made it to Sedona, wouldn’t have mud bogged there, met Alfredo, eaten at The Pine Country Restaurant, or had the respect of the 4X4 crowd as I rolled into Vegas.

Family road trips were LA-SF-LA when I was a kid, and in the McQueen book, there’s a shot of SM in Carmel in front of the same little Italian deli where we would always pick up sourdough bread, cheese, salami, and pine nuts to eat in the car on the way up/back.

My trip was as cathartic as I had hoped.

Clear head, great views, and without a radio from Williams back to LA, time to think creatively about the figurative road that lies ahead.

As a kid, we had a “no boring cars” rule in the house.  My first car was a 1938 Dodge sedan, light yellow, Earl Scheib 29.95, paint job—no kidding.  It was from there to ‘65-’67 Mustangs, lots of Long Beach Junkyard time, and then on to various other projects, and the occasional beauties.  Highlights from the long sold, departed, traded repertoire include a 1956 Thunderbird, 1995 Chevrolet Impala SS—weird, but I loved it, a grey market Mercedes G-Wagen—before they were the ride of choice for hipster soccer moms, and current rides;  a 1997 Defender 90, 1989 Jeep Grand Wagoneer, and the 1947 Mercury Woodie.

I feel like I have the current stable is pretty close to perfect, and like with most things, I’m trying to pare down rather than add.

As I have detailed earlier, the 1997 Defender 90 is the daily driver.  I bought it nearly new in 1997, sold it to a friend with the caveat, that if sold, it had to come back to me.  It was gone for 5 years, with only 4,500 miles added, and back to me in 2005. The Defender has really never been off road, unless you consider the dirt lot at San Onofore offroad, and she stays pretty local to SoCal.  With only 75K miles on the odometer, the motor was strong, but starting to show some valve issues, and other, more serious warning signs.  I also wanted to do some clean up work on then interior, as the old carpets were pretty worn, and the headliner saggy.

I enlisted the support of an old friend and true perfectionist, Carlos Alcanterra, to handle the job.  With everything coming out of the interior, Carlos convinced me that Dynomatting the interior would make the aluminum body not only feel more solid, but cut way down on interior noise that made mobile phone conversations often unintelligible.  I was thinking that Carlos was going to do the door panels, and rear floor, but he had other ideas.  With the interior completely disassembled, headliner out, and carpeting going in, Carlos had the entire car covered in Heavy Duty Dynomat.  With the carpet in, headliner replaced, corroded bolts swapped for new, and all new Land Rover rubber mats covering it all, the 1997 Defender 90 interior has been given a new lease on life.  Black carpets in Porsche material replaced the factory grey, and a modern fabric headliner was swapped for the droopy factory vinyl.  While the car was tied up and disassembled, I picked up a full set of factory rims and had them powder coated semi gloss black to match the ARB Brush Guard and side steps.  All of the powder coating was artfully handled by Bob at Verne’s Plating in Inglewood, CA.

While it all felt so much better and quieter, the nagging motor problems needed to be—more like I wanted them to be  addressed.  A little web based research, and consultation with friend, Barry Fein, as well as Neal and Nigel at British Eurotech, led me to the plan to replace the stock 4.0L V8, with an upgraded 4.6L V8; that began it’s life in a bigger and heavier Range Rover.

A quick rebuild with upgraded cylinder sleeves, cam gears, and a reprogrammed ECU now makes the car nothing short of spectacular.  Adding around 60hp doesn’t sound like a lot, but the SOTP (seat of the pants) difference is remarkable.  While the Defender used to be sluggish, slow and loud, it now jams.  Fuel economy has improved 10%-15%, and I couldn’t be happier.

Like most projects, this one took on somewhat of a life of its own.  I had great counsel from Carlos, Barry and the Neal and Nigel at British Eurotech.

Six months ago I was getting the itch for a new project, looking at 1993 Defender 110’s, and even considering an amazing 110 rag top conversion.  Cooler heads prevailed and I made the right decision.  The Defender is back home and better than ever.  I try to tell myself that this project’s complete, but I know that’s never the case.  I’ve got my eye on a Safety Devices full roll cage from East Coast Rover that will turn the Defender 90, into a mini-110.  More on that later.

I know I’ve been a little car crazed lately, and I haven’t even gotten around to detailing the entire stable here. But as nutty as I am for cars/trucks/bikes, it’s really the customizing thing that has me. I’ve been through the typical phases, dating back to high school, and starting with car stereo—I even had a vintage under-dash record player at one point—and through wheels, including all of the flavors of powder coating. (I was doing black wheels way before it was fashionable.)

But my taste for customizing cars isn’t strictly cosmetic. I’ve been through all of the performance upgrades as well. My main interest is getting cold air into the engine faster—it’s denser and leads to better performance, as well as getting exhaust out of the engine as quickly as possible. Well designed “cold air” kits solve the former, and the science of exhaust kits fix the latter. The latter is actually more fun, because the sound of a perfectly tuned exhaust is genius.

With the cult of the car in full effect in LA, there are plenty of choices. Pepe who runs AAA Exhaust on the corner of La Cienega and Venice Blvd is always a great spot to see great work. They aren’t afraid to handcraft beautiful “Cat Back” stainless systems, and their selection of stainless tips is unmatched. I’ve had more cars than I can remember tinkered with by Pepe and Co.

My 1948 Mercury Woodie has been an ongoing project for the last 15 years. The Woodie is really beautiful, and if you haven’t been in a wooden wagon on a summer night, you need to. I’m especially lucky because the wood on my Merc is all original, and has never been apart—which means no rattles. Aside from wood refinishing 30 years ago, it’s a full restoration that looks bone stock. A great advantage is it has been upgraded to modern running gear—350 Chevy motor, automatic trans, power steering, disc brakes. Although it looks showroom original, you could drive it cross country without a worry. What the Woodie was missing was a killer exhaust to complement the Edelbrock intake and Holley 650 carburetor. Through a friend I was introduced to the tech center team at Magnaflow mufflers in Rancho Santa Margarita. Led by Gabe Hall, the team at Magnaflow has performed their magic for many of So Cal’s best hot rod builders. Magnaflow offered to build a custom set up for the Woodie, and a week after dropping her off, I couldn’t wait to turn the key. The sound was fantastic, with performance to match. Cruising at 85 on the 405 back to the South Bay was a dream—she sounds perfect.

Magnaflow has designed and stocks a cat back system for the Defender 90/110’s and the word on the Defender forums is that the sound and performance is outstanding. I’m currently running a stock exhaust system with a Flowmaster chamber muffler that could use an upgrade.

Tweaking and wrenching on cars in the summer is a ritual, and a time honored tradition in my family. Together we’ve messed with 1930’s Dodges, too many Mustangs, F100’s and Indian motorcycles. While maintenance is mandatory, it’s the great sounding performance stuff that is heart of it all.

My daily driver is in many ways impractical, kinda noisy, not super comfortable, with the aerodynamics of a cardboard box. But, I love the Defender 90. The 1997’s are unique in that they were the only Defender 90’s imported into the US for 3 years between 1994 and 1997 that had factory hardtops, full carpeting, automatic transmission and air conditioning. A lack of air bags other quite worthy safety features ended the Defenders life in North America, and the NAS designation, is what’s given to these mid-90’s models that have factory roll cages as a safety accommodation. The basic comforts pale in comparison to what we’ve become accustomed to in event the least expensive econoboxes, and the same passengers who have never owned a vinyl record, find the hand crank windows, at first puzzling, then quaint. If you’re the guy pulling up on the passenger side making international symbol to roll the window down, and now knowing I have to do gymnastics to lean over and crank, don’t think I’m rude for pretending I didn’t see you.

My Defender has an interesting provenance. I was the second owner of what has been nicknamed the Sugar Cube—for obvious aesthetic reasons. Purchased from the original owner, I sold it to a friend who had his very obedient assistant pick it up in Los Angeles, and drive it to him directly in NYC. Daunting to say the least and at the time, the Sugar Cube hadn’t yet had the addition of a 13 gallon auxiliary fuel tank form Aero Tanks. So there were a lot of fuel stops to be sure.

A condition of the contract written for that sale, dictated that if he ever wanted to sell the Defender he had to offer it back to me first. Of course when he was moving out of the country, I couldn’t help myself. The Cube was out of my life for about 5 years and my buddy had only put about 5,000 miles on it, including the trip to NYC. Besides the tank, other mods include a substantially upgraded sound system, and many Land Rover factory accessory, including my favorite, waterproof seat covers, originally intended for the fox hunting crowd in the Cotswolds, but appropriated by surfers around the world. Other mods include an ARB Kangaroo bar, stainless exhaust system and IPC lighting.

I am lucky to have local mechanical leverage form the boys at British Eurotech in Lawndale. Parts are sometimes difficult to come by, but I seem to find what I need from Rovers North.

The Defenders are iconic, quirky, slow, kinda loud, and weird daily drivers. I love the form over function aesthetic, and the interior noise, Dynamat aside, gives me a good excuse for staying off the iPhone and enjoying the ride. As good examples have become harder to find, I get the monthly note on the windshield asking if she’s for sale. While always tempted, I cant imagine her out of the stable. Copley Motorcars in Boston www.copleymotorcars.com always has the best and cleanest of Defenders in inventory. And, East Coast Rovers in Maine are the restoration gurus. I’ve been eyeing a NYC based Defender 110 owned by an equally passionate friend, and if I can ever get him to part with it, it’s the only replacement for the Sugar Cube that I can imagine.