Street Sleeper
First featured in 4x4 magazine, september 2018
Street racing isn’t something you would out of the ordinary.‘I bought this as a toy and necessarily associate with Land Rovers of any description, nor is it a pastime that this well-behaved publication would condone.We all like to have fun in our toys, but with Land Rovers you’re more likely to think about making tracks in the grasslands of Africa, rather than how long your elevenses (the two black tyre marks running parallel to each other) may be at the traffic lights down in your city centre.
Of course, partly this is down to Land Rovers not having much of a reputation for their pace. Let’s face it, old chap, you’re never going to set any quarter-mile records turning up with a 200Tdi unit in your engine bay – at least not for the right reasons anyway.
But this is where things can play to our advantage.We can seize the initiative and play on the fact that others will mistakenly assume that they can make a dog’s dinner out of us and scamper off into the distance.All you need is the right tool for the job.
So what’s this then? Looks like a regular old Land Rover 110 - hell it’s not even technically a Defender! But wait – can someone tell me why there’s a Chevy LS6 engine under the bonnet?
We all know how customisable Land Rovers are, and you’ll never see two the same, but there’s a lot to be said for being understated. After all, it’s just the quality you need to give you the element of surprise.
Brendon Frost holds the keys to this ‘street sleeper’.And he thrives on it being something out of the ordinary.‘I bought this as a toy andnecessarily associate with Land Rovers of any description, nor is it a pastime that this well-behaved publication would condone.We all like to have fun in our toys, but with Land Rovers you’re more likely to think about making tracks in the grasslands of Africa, rather than how long your elevenses (the two black tyre marks running parallel to each other) may be at the traffic lights down in your city centre.
Of course, partly this is down to Land Rovers not having much of a reputation for their pace. Let’s face it, old chap, you’re never going to
set any quarter-mile records turning up with a 200Tdi unit in your engine bay – at least not for the right reasons anyway.
But this is where things can play to our advantage.We can seize the initiative and play on the fact that others will mistakenly assume that they can make a dog’s dinner out of us and scamper off into the distance.All you need is the right tool for the job.
So what’s this then? Looks like a regular old Land Rover 110 - hell it’s not even technically a Defender! But wait – can someone tell me why there’s a Chevy LS6 engine under the bonnet?
We all know how customisable Land Rovers are, and you’ll never see two the same, but there’s a lot to be said for being understated. After all, it’s just the quality you need to give you the element of surprise.
Brendon Frost holds the keys to this ‘street sleeper’. And he thrives on it being something out of the ordinary. 'I bought this as a toy and I like stuff that’s not 100% normal,’ he smirks. Normal on the outside it may be – but driving a 110 with such a V8 under the hood is bound to blow your cover at some point.
‘I can’t remember exactly when I got the Land Rover, but it was around three years ago,’ reflects Brendon.‘The conversion was done by a previous owner with the work first done in the 90s. Not only that, but the vehicle was originally a truck cab model before being changed to a hard-top version.
‘Then the owner apparently wanted to convert it into a military hard-top; wanted to make it stand out but ended up giving it these horrible after-fit windows.’ Again, sometimes less is more, but it never hurts to have a trick or two up your sleeve, it’s just that Brendon’s trick is a massive great big American lump of a trick.
Back to the story, and said previous owner had now managed to get bored of changing his 110 every five minutes and had shoved it in a barn and forgotten about it.Time passed, but eventually the 110 fell into the hands of one of Brendon’s acquaintances. Naturally, Brendon put in a word for the 110 in case it ever became available – who wouldn’t want a Chevy-engined 110, right?
Like the pace of your typical Land Rover, the story was a bit of a slow burner, with more years passing until one evening Brendon was having a beer with his pal.
‘Whatever happened to that truck with the LS6 engine inside?’ questioned Brendon. ‘Funnily enough, I’ve still got it tucked away in the barn!’ came the reply.
Like a lifeguard rushing to the aid of a stricken shoreline swimmer, Brendon could see the
110 needed rescuing.‘It was in an awful state, wrecked really,’ he recalls. ‘But it would have been a shame to break it up.The whole body needed changing again and it was in a horrible army green colour with no interior and the transmission tunnel missing. There appeared to be about 20 different layers of paint on the bulkhead, too.’
No matter.This was a Land Rover with a rather enticing USP, and so with the 110 now in his possession, Brendon started to strip down the chassis which had come from Saudi Arabia and therefore was completely free from rust. A bonus if ever there was one.
But work still needed doing.The 110 was given a new roof and sides along with a new Td5 bonnet, while the tub turned out to be OK, but the wheels were rusted out. Brendon’s truck now runs as a tidy looking hard-top and, to the casual eye, a low-powered cumbersome machine that would struggle to carry itself to the end of a driveway, let alone burning off Daz and his mates who are looking for a drag race in the car they’ve just bought from Toys‘R’Us.
I’m a big fan of this 110, I must say. Everything from the engine, to the looks, to the interior – it’s been finished perfectly. Brendon tells me it was previously a Marine Blue, and while this may not be that exact colour, the bodywork has been finished in a true Land Rover tint, in this case the dark blue from the earlyTd5 Defenders.
A quick mention about that interior: there’s soundproofing from Noisekiller running throughout on the bonnet and bulkhead, acoustic carpets inside supplied by Exmoor Trim and the roof lining has been given additional insulation so that even on a run, and despite its van-type form, it’s not as unrefined as you might think.
‘It’s understated, has a GM Chevy exhaust and just sounds like a Rover V8 out of time if you’re cruising along normally,’ smiles Brendon.‘To drive, it’s very docile and there’s loads of torque, but when you want it to be it’s stunningly quick. It’s the torque that makes you laugh, though, there’s just this wave of it.’
And what about that V8 noise? Well, I think the 110’s owner sums it up pretty well. ‘When I try and describe it to people, the only way I can is to say that it has a note like God clearing His throat!’
You can picture it, can’t you, Brendon on the way home from work one day and sitting patiently at the lights. Up rolls some delinquent in a shoebox thinking he’s going to screech off into the distance, with his engine making the same sound as the driver once being kicked in the plums.
Cue the throat clearing, the green light, that all-American thunder and a big grin across Brendon’s face as he sees the shoebox diminish into his mirrors.All hypothetical, of course.
This is a great Land Rover, and a classic case of substance over style. It’s a Land Rover well saved and, in this machine, Brendon has the most perfectly concealed weapon.
