Our Defender Build

Five summers, one Texas engine swap, an eight-month silence after a near-scrapping, a year-long broken-bolt roadblock, a head gasket that betrayed cylinders four and five, and an Oklahoma blizzard that finally proved the point: the slow, particular reconstruction of a 1988 Defender 90 in Norman, Oklahoma.

About this build

A 1988 Land Rover Defender 90, right-hand drive, with a 19J 2.5-litre turbo-diesel from the factory, now powered by a 1981 GM 250 inline-six on a Robert Davis conversion. The work began in July 2021 in Norman, Oklahoma, and is ongoing.

It has been a father-and-daughter project from the first weekend. There is no shop and no team: a garage in Norman, a list that has only gotten marginally shorter, and the conviction that an old Defender is worth getting right.