Most of the professional reviews are dire, the owners are more mixed, my favourite - "has a great turning circle.. if you are going one way round the M25" Going to take a look tomorrow.
Honestly unless there free or cheap on eBay I’d look elsewhere
I always liked the look of them and drove one where i used to work and hated everything about it. There not even good off road as a lad in my 4x4 club had one
So I bought it <£500 and in great condition - book price 1.9 -2.7K, if nothing else I can fix the head gasket (or the head) - assuming that the diagnosis is correct and sell it after I have used it for a couple of months. From what I can gather the HG (sometimes) and head (usually) are prone to failure following any sort of overheat, it has a new rad and t.stat on it but the whole cooling system will need careful checking as I don't want to do the HG/H twice!
The chassis of 2725mm is exactly the same as the 2nd Gen Pajero/Shogun LWB chassis of 2725mm - so in terms of a donor for a prototype it fits the bill - especially as it is a top spec model (leather etc) so has lots of nice parts to break and sell - and quite a few apparently fit the L200. As a bonus it has RWD only, as standard and the intercooler on the top of the engine can be re-located to give a lower bonnet line. The 1st gen motor is 114HP on this car - which as others have mentioned is not enough for it's weight , the 3rd gen 2.5td puts out 178hp not sure of swap potential. I believe it was also available with the 3 or 3.5L V6 petrol
Thanks everyone for the advice and input - I had not even considered the Pajero/Shogun when I started the thread, then at first the Disco/RR seemed ideal but on closer examination the donor availability was not what it appeared. Lots of valid points raised re spares but I think the Pajero/Shogun is a good compromise.
Thanks Stuvy I'll take a look at that (I figured you mean Triumph Stag before the autocorrect got to it!) - it's a really common problem with these engines, but AFAIK the HG is not the cause but a symptom.
Will definitely give you a shout!