Driving through the sleepy Devonshire town of South Molton, the sight of three Discoverys in convoy wouldn’t normally warrant so much as a sideways glace, never mind a raised eyebrow. This is after all, typical Discovery country. Rural location, ‘ladies who lunch’, Labradors lazing round the Aga and convoys of 4x4’s on their way to the school gates come closing time. Today however, as the walls of South Molton’s compact market square resonate with the distinctive open-tread buzz of 35-inch tyres, eyebrows aren’t just raised, heads turn and people stare. Who says Discoverys can’t be cool?

The fact that our group of Discoverys caused such a stir with the good people of South Molton says a lot about people’s perception of the Discovery. Had it been a trio of tricked up Defenders, chances were our presence would have gone unnoticed. After all, these days you can get winches, snorkels, steering guards and all the chequer plate you would ever want down at your Land Rover main dealer. The G4 Defender even came with an imitation roll bar round the windscreen. Now modifying a Discovery, well that’s a different matter. Compared with the mountain of goodies available for the Defender, the Discoverys relative lack of bolt-on appeal may explain why it still hasn’t yet captured the imagination of the UK off-road enthusiast.

There is though a growing, albeit small band of Discovery converts, who have dared to buck the trend and recognise that the Defender isn’t the be all and end all when it comes to getting down and dirty. As Karl Gardner, the owner of the Epsom green Discovery in our convoy is at pains to points out: ‘Everyone has done the Defender to death.’ Simon Buck, Devon 4x4 impresario and the builder of some of the smartest Defender’s in the country, wouldn’t necessarily agree with Karl’s comments, but true to his company strap-line as ‘innovators not imitators’ Buck, together with Karl were two of the first people to recognise the Discoverys potential for ‘tinkering’ with. Many of you reading this will have no doubt spotted Karl’s distinctive Discovery on Devon 4x4 stands at various events around the country. Indeed, it was at such an event a couple of years ago that I myself first admired the product of Karl’s imagination. A few months later in the states, attending the Solihull Society National Rally in Utah, I found myself surrounded by equally tricked up Discoverys doing their stuff on Moab’s distinctive red rock. The quality of your typical American ‘wheelers Discovery was already streets ahead of anything we have, so once back home, imagination fired up by surfing on the Discoweb (www.discoweb.org) site, I figuredit was time to play catch up. K3MUD may still not be quite finished, but from the pictures here, you get the general idea.

All of these Discoverys started out in life as what still remains one of the most under-appreciated Land Rovers to wear the green oval badge. Compare the available room in the back of a Discovery Commercial with a 90 or even a 110 for that matter and it’s hard to understand why more people didn’t opt for the two-seater Discovery. Stripped of its rear seats, that massive expanse of fresh air in the load bay offered commercial users a voluminous carrying capacity, which unlike the Defender, helped by its large rear door aperture meant for once you could actually get stuff in and out with ease. Now that the original Discovery Commercial has a few years under its belt, this stripped down school-run special makes it ideally suited as a starting point for an off-roader that will not only do the business, but will get you there and back with a level of refinement the Defender driver can only dream about. As Karl Gardner says: ‘with these, they’ll transport you in comfort for 300 miles at 80mph; they’ll go everywhere a Defender will go off-road and then let you drive 300 miles back home’

When initially looking for an off-road plaything Karl confesses to having test-driven loads of Defenders: ‘I then started to notice that Discoverys of a similar age and condition could be had for around £2000 cheaper than a Defender. I’d have to say if you’re looking for something to beat up, then forget Defenders, save yourself a chunk of money and buy yourself something like a G plate Disco’.


Judging by the pristine state of Karl’s Discovery he’s not into ‘beating up’ his cars, but don’t be fooled into thinking that this truck is all for show. This Discovery gets used off-road regularly and it’s the Commercials ability to eat up the miles that’s meant Karl’s fast becoming a convert to overseas adventures. Besides events in France, Karl’s Discovery has seen action in Ireland on events run by one of Irelands leading light’s-JJ Kealy. Heavily involved with all things off-road in the Republic, JJ is a man renown for demanding something a little less ordinary, and happens to be the owner of the silver Commercial you see here. In the absence of its owner for our photoshoot, we managed to persuade Simon Buck and the Discovery away from the workshop, where the Devon 4x4 team were busy putting the finishing touches to the vehicle after a undergoing a typical Devon 4x4 Discovery makeover.

When Karl started out with his stock Discovery, he’d attended one of Vince Cobley’s off-road training days. Karl mentioned that he was looking to make some serious modifications to his Discovery in the near future. ‘Vince told me there were only two companies in the country that he’d recommend for the kind of work I was talking about. One was Frogs Island and the other was Devon 4x4. Living in Bridgwater, Somerset meant Devon 4x4 was the obvious choice’

An engineer by trade, Karl confesses that he’s more than happy to let the Devon 4x4 team do most of the dirty work on his Discovery, although its fair to say many of the mods Karl’s had carried out would be beyond the scope of your average driveway anyway. The Safety Devices internal roll cage was a first for Devon 4x4, and its week long installation still gives Simon Buck nightmares. In the end, all of the dash assembly had to come out of the car and as Karl points out Devon 4x4’s workshop manager Martin Kingdon ‘still has the scars to prove it!’ The distinctive Devon 4x4 light-bar around the front of the windscreen was another first done at the request of Karl and again turned out to be something of an engineering feat. Simon Buck points out the number of different curves and radiuses that have to be followed around the roof-line of the Discovery to get the bar to sit snugly around the roof. ‘the bars are an absolute nightmare to bend up. We get loads of requests for the bar, but to be honest the costs involved in man hours alone make manufacturing them prohibitive. We’re currently looking into drawing up a CAD programme using a section of the Discovery roof panel on a test bed where all of the measurements are taken by laser.’ In the absence of a programme to slot into the tube benders computer, JJ’s roof bar which differs in that it extends to the rear of the bodywork had to be bent using good ol’ fashioned trial and error.

All of the Discoverys here share much the same suspension set ups with OME springs and shocks used all round. For the number crunchers the OME springs codes are 764’s on the front with extra heavy duty 763’s in the rear to give just over 2 inches of lift. JJ Kealy combines his OME set-up with a Scorpion ‘Evolution’ kit with modified shock mounts and dislocation cones offering an extra degree of suspension travel.

To achieve that ‘Discovery by Tonka’ look all three Discovery’s here are running 35inch tyres. But before you rush out to buy a set of 35’s for your Discovery, then stop for a moment because this is where tricking up the Discovery starts to get complicated. To modify a Discovery you need to be patient. You also need to be prepared for problems. I certainly need no reminding when Karl says: ‘You do one job and it will always create two others!’ Simon Buck puts it more bluntly: ‘to mess with a Discovery, you need a lot more skill’. And speaking from experience- a lot more money!

Upping the tyre size means you’re upping the gearing. For refined motorway cruising the Discovery already runs tall gearing, so running 35’s will kill any performance your engine might once have had. To correct this over gearing/under revving scenario, Karl Gardner has swapped the Discoverys 1.2 ratio transfer box to the Defender 1.4 T-Case and for day to day running leaves the Simex back at home and instead runs 285/85 x 16 (33in equivalent) BFG M/T’s. Swapping the T-Case will only reduce the high-ratio gearing so for off-road work on the Simex, Karl confesses in low-box, the gearing remains a tad too high. Devon 4x4 has overcome this problem on JJ’s axles by swapping the standard 3.54 diff ratios for a set of Ashcroft’s latest 4.11 ring and pinion gearsets. While the axles were stripped, in went a pair of ARB air lockers. Not surprisingly, 4.11 R&P’s are next on Karl’s shopping list. No need for ARB’s, he already has them. JJ runs a bog standard 3.9 V8 so with the gearing sorted, get up and go is typically V8-like. When Karl’s tells me on 33in tyres, running Defender gearing, plus the extra shove from his Twisted Performance intercooler, ‘it’ll really fly’, it reminds me how desperately I need to sort my own gearing out. Even Jeremy Fearn’s best intercooling efforts cannot now make up for the lack of grunt with the stock gearing on 35 inch tyres.

To clear any oversized rubber, serious hacking of the wheel arches is a Discovery formality.