Meet The Indian Teenage Girl Who Drives A 70-Year-Old Land Rover (Video)

When we say Defender, most people think of the outgoing model, the one which has already reached the garages of the wealthy and the affluent. A lot of people are still new to its great ancestor- the Land Rover Series 1. Land Rover, as a brand, has a rich history. A video shared on YouTube shows a young girl from India, who has restored a vintage Land Rover Series 1 and even drove it on video.

This video was shared on the channel YuVlogs. It starts by showing the host driving the vehicle through what looks like a farm. The video mentions it as Defender. But going by the design, it seems to be the Series 1. The original Defender was a descendant of this model.

The host says that the original vehicle came with a petrol engine which they have replaced with a Mahindra Bolero-sourced diesel engine. The host can be seen starting the vehicle, bringing the diesel engine to life. Clearly, it sounds so different from the original engine.

Talking about the stock powertrains, the original Series 1 came with a 1.4-liter inline-four petrol engine, which was later replaced with a 2.0-liter petrol engine.

This Series 1 rides on 15-inch tyres. The host further says that it is equally great to drive this vehicle on roads and trails.

However, from what is shown in the video, this Land Rover isn't in its prime! Rust can be seen at a few places of the body work and the structure doesn't look as solid as it should have ideally been. Even with these said, this vehicle here is one of the few surviving examples here, and is worth knowing about.

The video further says that a teenage girl has been using this vehicle for long. She can be seen in the video, driving the 70+ year-old Land Rover through the farm. We are not sure if the girl had a valid driving license back when this video was filmed. But since it was on a farm that the action took place, she would stay clear of legal troubles.

More About Land Rover Series I

The Series I, II, and III are collectively called the Land Rover Series. These numbers were used to differentiate models. These were developed by the British Rover company and the first Series 1 which debuted in 1948 had a pre-war engine! It had a transfer case which the company developed from scratch. It was an attempt at rivalling the American Jeeps, and later became the first mass-produced civilian off-road vehicles with doors.

It had simple, flat, Aluminum body panels attached to a steel frame. The design tried its best to keep production costs under check. Most panels and surfaces were flat and the front fenders would be the only exceptions.

The design of the front fascia- the fenders, grille, headlights and indicator lamps- was a major differentiating factor between Series 1 and Series 2. Back in its day, the soft-top variants of the Series 1 Land Rover had a lot of takers. It later spawned several variants as well- example, the pickup shown below!

In 1952, a 2.0 liter engine debuted on the Series 1 lineup, bringing more power and performance to the table. Later in time, longer wheelbase versions were also introduced, including a station wagon.

In the North-East and places like Darjeeling, operational Land Rover Series 1s and Defenders were a common sight till recently. These were mostly deployed as cabs in the mountains. In the past few years, however, the number of these have fallen drastically.