Land Rover captive breeding programme is in full swing

Feb 26, 2024

The Ply Guys

Feb 2024

@theplyguys

Yup, the Land Rover captive breeding programme is in full swing and we’ve popped out a cheeky wee 90. This one’s a daily driver but we’re going to task the smallest Defender with some mighty tasks so thought we’d put together a wee blog outlining the plan.

We’re pretty sure most people will recognise a Defender when they see one. They’ve been around long enough, with the Defender series first built in 1983, and a hardy few are determined to keep them on the road. Available in a myriad of formats, most camper / expedition setups are based on 110’s due to their larger size and capacity, whilst most will agree that a 90 is probably easier to live with on a day-to-day basis due to its smaller footprint and maneuverability. If you follow us on social media you will no doubt have seen some of our 110 builds (we did an epic 110 Expedition for Jaguar Land Rover Classics for Goodwood Revival), now it’s time for the mighty-90 to get a look in.

Most 90 builds focus on a basic gear carrying setup in the back, opting to drop a roof tent on the top. We’re going to go about this one slightly differently. Keeping the top sans-tent means more space for carrying all the toys. We’ve been slapping on some class Front Runner accessories and should hopefully be putting the final touches to these in the next few days. In the meantime, the interior has been insulated, lined and the first ply-goodness is going in. A Suas ceiling with 2no. LEDs (complete with Torridon engraving detail) and Balla Walls (with alpine window cut-outs) has been fitted alongside an Urlar floor with some pinstripe detailing. We’ve taken the bulkhead out of this one to give us a bit more room up front and dropped in one of our Gairndean cubbies. We’re not sure on what colour to run with on the upholstery yet – we’re thinking Black & White Harris Tweed but Orange is a close second. Thoughts?! Of course now that Dave (yes, he’s called Dave – we also have a DeeDee and a Dorris) is much quieter (on the inside anyway) we’ve dropped in a working stereo and sub. He’s going to be doing some miles so tunes are a must!

The fit out inside is going to cover a lot…on the left is a bench seat which doubles as crate storage. On the right is a new ‘expedition’ kitchen / storage unit with built in EcoFlow unit to power the pleasure centre. In the middle we’ve opted for a pull out Drathair slide which can store Wolf Boxes, dog crate or anything else which will fit. It will also double as a slide out cook station (assuming nae midges). The big change will be our new removable bed platform. We know it’s not the biggest space but we’ve snuck in a bed for a 6ftr with room for the dog. This genius platform doubles as a storage platform during the day and cunning bed system at night and can be removed for those more frequent day van adventures. 1 Defender, so many uses.

Expect to see ‘Dave’ out on some Van + Landy trips in the near future as well as at Tweed Love in the Borders in June and Defender Jam 2024 in August. We’re sure he’ll also star in his own one Defender Adventure YouTube soon enough so if you want to keep up to date then jump on here and subscribe.

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If you want to create your very own ‘Dave’ then here’s a brief list of the extras we’ve fitted:

Defender 90 (2007) TDCi Puma 2.4 build list:

Front Runner