Used Car of the Day: 1997 Land Rover Defender

Tim Healey
by Tim Healey

If a left-hand-drive diesel Land Rover is your kind of thing, check out this listing.


Coming to us from Miami, this 110 five-door 300tdi has a five-speed manual and appears to be in good enough condition to drive daily.

The listing is a bit sparse, so you might have to do some digging to find out more, but based on the pics, the Defender mostly looks good, though there does appear to be some rust.


[Images: Seller]

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Tim Healey
Tim Healey

Tim Healey grew up around the auto-parts business and has always had a love for cars — his parents joke his first word was “‘Vette”. Despite this, he wanted to pursue a career in sports writing but he ended up falling semi-accidentally into the automotive-journalism industry, first at Consumer Guide Automotive and later at Web2Carz.com. He also worked as an industry analyst at Mintel Group and freelanced for About.com, CarFax, Vehix.com, High Gear Media, Torque News, FutureCar.com, Cars.com, among others, and of course Vertical Scope sites such as AutoGuide.com, Off-Road.com, and HybridCars.com. He’s an urbanite and as such, doesn’t need a daily driver, but if he had one, it would be compact, sporty, and have a manual transmission.

More by Tim Healey

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3 of 13 comments
  • Arthur Dailey Arthur Dailey on Dec 14, 2022

    Let me just set this money on fire.

    • Add Lightness Add Lightness on Dec 14, 2022

      Way cheaper fashion statement than a new Jeep and relatively minor depreciation.


  • MaintenanceCosts MaintenanceCosts on Dec 14, 2022

    The styling of an early-industrial-age machine tool, the reliability of a low-bid contractor, the power of a trained squirrel, the handling of a Roman ox cart, the fuel economy of a natural gas flare, and the comfort of a jail cot? Sign me up!

  • Lou_BC Synthetic oil for my diesel is expensive. It calls for Dexos2. I usually keep an eye out for sales and stock up. I can get 2 - 3 oil and filter changes done by my son for what the Chevy dealer charges for one oil change.
  • Joe65688619 My last new car was a 2020 Acura RDX. Left it parked in the Florida sun for a few hours with the windows up the first day I had it, and was literally coughing and hacking on the offgassing. No doubt there is a problem here, but are there regs for the makeup of the interiors? The article notes that that "shockingly"...it's only shocking to me if they are not supposed to be there to begin with.
  • MaintenanceCosts "GLX" with the 2.slow? I'm confused. I thought that during the Mk3 and Mk4 era "GLX" meant the car had a VR6.
  • Dr.Nick What about Infiniti? Some of those cars might be interesting, whereas not much at Nissan interest me other than the Z which is probably big bucks.
  • Dave Holzman My '08 Civic (stick, 159k on the clock) is my favorite car that I've ever owned. If I had to choose between the current Civic and Corolla, I'd test drive 'em (with stick), and see how they felt. But I'd be approaching this choice partial to the Civic. I would not want any sort of automatic transmission, or the turbo engine.
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