This 1973 Series 3 Land Rover was discovered by Buz Ras at a wealthy apple farmer’s house in Tieton, Washington, it had been sitting for 10 years due to a stuck clutch and was in need of a rescue.
Buz is the founder of Seattle Speedometer and one of the world’s leading experts on instrument and gauge restoration for classic cars. Gauges that Buz has restored have been fitted to a number of Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance first place winners as well as a few Tucker 48s, Carroll Shelby’s prototype GT350 (that was recently auctioned for a world record price), and any number of classic Porsches, Mercedes, Ferraris, Lamborghinis, etc.
When he discovered this Series 3 he knew he needed to have it, fixing the clutch isn’t a huge job of course but as with any vehicle that’s been sitting for 10 years he knew he was going to need to replace all the fluids and go over each mechanical component with a fine tooth comb to ensure it’s working correctly.
Once he’d completed the above he fitted a new set of seats for comfort and a new set of tires for safety, it’s also fitted with a Roverdrive – an overdrive unit that makes it far more useable on long distance trips that require higher-speed cruising. With its rust free chassis and excellent original condition he didn’t want to do a full restoration, but rather he decided to keep it as a patinated survivor – a look that suits Series Land Rovers remarkably well.
As with all Series Land Rovers, this one has a removable hardtop, removable door tops, and a windscreen that folds down onto the hood (when the spare tire has been removed). This makes it an excellent summer vehicle, and putting it all back together requires some basic hand tools, two people, and less than half an hour once you get the hang of it.
The only change he added to the vehicle was directly related to his day job, he’s got a good hand with a paint brush and he added an authentic-looking British Trans-Africa Expedition livery to both sides of the Land Rover, properly patinated to match the rest of the vehicle.
Buz explains that he’s always loved the original British Trans-Africa Expedition vehicles and this one certainly looks the part, he was careful to use city names that don’t match the actual route used in 1973/1974 so that future owner’s can’t pass it off as original.
The 1973/1974 Trans-Africa Expedition ran between Johannesburg and London, however there’s a unique opportunity for the new owner of this particular Land Rover to take it over to North Africa and do the Morocco – Cape Town route, then update the year on the livery.
Buz is now selling the Lad Rover on to a new owner who can take it on new adventures, if you’d like to talk to him about it and get additional information, or negotiate a mutually acceptable price you can click here to contact him via the Seattle Speedometer website – Buz is based in Ellensburg, Washington.
Images courtesy of Buz Ras
Articles that Ben has written have been covered on CNN, Popular Mechanics, Smithsonian Magazine, Road & Track Magazine, the official Pinterest blog, the official eBay Motors blog, BuzzFeed, Autoweek Magazine, Wired Magazine, Autoblog, Gear Patrol, Jalopnik, The Verge, and many more.
Silodrome was founded by Ben back in 2010, in the years since the site has grown to become a world leader in the alternative and vintage motoring sector, with well over a million monthly readers from around the world and many hundreds of thousands of followers on social media.
