It’s just turned 11 o’clock at night by the time your pair of flat cap wearing 4x4 freelancers roll up at the door of the Devon 4x4 empire in South Molton. Tired and weary after our 6½-hour night-time drive from the north of England to the west country, a typical Simon Buck welcome awaits us: ‘What time do you call this you purr of northern monkees?’ As anyone who’s ever met the Devonian off road entrepreneur and 2002 Malaysian Rainforest Challenge champion and will testify, the Buck-meister is not a man known for his shy and retiring character. With a personality that’s even more in your face than the distinctive bright yellow and green Devon 4x4 corporate image, Buck is a man with forthright views on any subject you care to mention, something he promptly proceeds to demonstrate to us while 3 o’clock in the morning until eventually forced to stop and take a breathe.

In spite of an accent that pure Jethro and being able to demonstrate a ‘colourful’ command of the English language that would make Derek and Clive blush, Simon’s no fool and displays a hard edged competitive nature that comes to the forefront not just in his business dealings but in all aspects of his life. Having successfully given up the nicotine habit recently , he lets slip that it wasn’t necessarily the physical benefits that provided the motivation: ‘I went along to these group meetings at the hospital and as the weeks went on and more people dropped out I was determined to stick it out and beat them all. At the end of the course I was the only one left. As far as I was concerned, I’d won!’ Displaying an unashamedly hard nosed competitive streak has helped the (non-smoking) Devon garage proprietor become one of the World’s top off road competitors, whether deep beneath the jungle canopy in Malaysia, the parched outback of Australia or on some saturated peat bog in Scotland.

Nevertheless, la grand testicles and gritty determination alone won’t take you to the top of the tough world of extreme winch challenge events, to do that, you’re going to need a vehicle tough enough to cope with anything you care to throw at it. Simon granted 4x4 an exclusive workshop poking and a prodding session to take a look at what goes into building what must be one of the most capable Land Rover’s in the country.

The starting point for the new vehicle was a well used R-plate Defender 90 which was stripped down to its bare chassis and bulkhead with any unnecessary brackets chopped off to get rid of the traditional Land Rover muck traps. At the front end of the vehicle, the Land Rovers departure angle has been improved with a handmade 5mm thick winch bumper sitting on refabricated mountings to sit the new bumper up above level of the front dumb-irons. This allows for the Warn 8274 to nestle snugly into the space behind the front grille, which in turn necessitated shifting the radiator and intercooler assembly together with the engine and gearbox a further 2-inches back in the chassis.

The main change for Simon is that this year he’s chosen to go automatic. The vehicles original engine and box were sold on and replaced with a Discovery 300Tdi and 4-speed auto pairing that had done just 8000-miles. With the more delicate control and more forgiving nature of the auto on the transmission, Simon certainly has no regrets, ‘awesome’ is just one of the printable superlative he chooses to describe the benefits of the auto box off road.

At the back of the chassis, the existing rear crossmember was chopped out and replaced with a heavy-duty scratch-built item to mount yet another super fast 8274 with the help of some additional beefing up around the tail end to take the stresses placed upon it by the winch. Lightweight Plasma winch cable is used throughout. ‘Plasma gives me a massive weight saving, but I’d have to say that the 8274 is the only kind of winch I’d ever put plasma onto because you don’t get the same kind of heat build up on the 8274’s drum as you do with other types of winch design’ These winch cables run through custom solid stainless fairleads that are once again, made in-house at Devon 4x4. Externally mounted push button switches allow the winches to be controlled easily outside of the vehicle and the all-important competition reliability is ensured by swapping the standard winch solenoids for heavier duty industrial spec contactors.

The complete underside of the Land Rover including the steering, sills and diesel tank are protected by various plates and/or much heavier-duty items while rollover protection comes from a Safety Devices cage mounted directly onto the chassis.

The axles are hung off an Old Man Emu combination of springs and shocks tailored for Simon’s preferred set-up. The way he can quote OME catalogue numbers and spring rates straight off the top of his head leaves you in doubt that Simon Buck has ‘a thing about suspension’. ‘We looked at going for a long travel extreme set up, but what good’s extreme suspension to me when I’m usually up to my doors in a bog? Instead we stuck to what we know and what we sell. I think its important that someone can see how capable our vehicle is, come to Devon 4x4 and buy the exact same suspension straight off the shelf and fit it straight onto their own vehicle.’ The extended springs add a further 2/3” of lift to increase wheel travel and help clear those aggressive 35-inch Simex tyres. ARB air locking diffs front and rear are beefed up using a subtle mixing and matching of ARB locker internals while both front and rear halfshafts are strengthened GKN Driveline items. ‘I’ve never broken one of these and as far as I’m concerned I wouldn’t use anything else’

Save for the odd tweak of the fuelling and a tickle on the old turbo boost pressure the 300Tdi remains pretty much as it left the factory, at least until he gets his new Jeremy J Fearn intercooler it is. This will be a one-off fabrication using a new and more efficient design of intercooler core that he and Derbyshire’s own Dr Diesel, Jeremy Fearn have been developing together. The auto box remains standard except for some additional cooling, while the transfer box has been fitted with lower gearing to help compensate for the oversized tyres.

Now this 90 may look impressive enough in the flesh, but it’s only when you’re start to inspect more closely at the nitty-gritty do you see the kind of quality of finish and attention to detail that’s gone into every single aspect of its construction. Simon confesses to having ‘a fetish about button heads, flange nuts and cap screws’. He also has what he describes as ‘a phobia about cable ties’: - ‘I absolutely hate the things, that’s why every thing you see is P-clipped wherever possible.’ All those P-Clips that run along the axles and chassis have been fastened by drilling and tapping the steelwork to accept the afore mentioned button head fasteners.

More proof of an almost anal attention to detail can be found in something as innocuous as the breather pipes. For a start, there are lots of them, including the injector pump winch motors, and power steering reservoir, all clipped to run together in parallel lines. All of the breathers are colour coded in yellow to differentiate them from the air lines to the ARB’s which are in blue! Where the air-lines or breathers run along the chassis, Simon uses the simple mod of replacing the single brake-pipe chassis clips with double clips to allow the brake pipes and plastic pipes to run alongside each other. A simple mod costing a matter of pence but one that makes all the difference between a shabby looking job and a professional finish.

Other finer points of Devon 4x4 off road preparation are the valve protection mods on the Mach 5 wheels, brake pipe protection brackets on the rear axle, rubber sleeves on the brake pipes and the simple protective shield around where the wiring loom goes into the chassis. All easy solutions to potentially terminal off road damage that’ll cost you next to nothing to carry out other than a bit of time. ‘Granted, we’ve got a garage business, but there’s nothing about what we’ve done to this vehicle that’s rocket science. All anyone needs achieve a decent level of finish is patience. I always say, if a job’s worth doing…’ A look inside the battery box at the wiring for the twin yellow top Optima’s reinforces this last point.

Plans for the future include a full length aluminium dashboard with all the controls specially positioned for driver and passenger. This means he’ll have to redesign all of his lovingly hand crafted aluminium transmission tunnel (‘a full day to bend and weld’) plus the housing where the auto lever lives. Mind you, he’s been looking for an excuse to do this as the original version isn’t quite up to Simon’s exacting standards. ‘can you see the gap around the lever where I cocked it up, I’m not happy with that. It’s a right mess isn’t it?’ He points out the not-so glaringly obvious 1mm discrepancy in the panelling!