I first met Dudley when he was looking after a great friend of ours in Portugal, he was the family work horse, he was hugely loved if a little tired around the edges. It was hard for anyone that went near him or travelled inside him to not fall instantly in love despite his bellowing exhaust, flaking paint and grinding gearbox. The Series 3 Land Rover has that effect on all people, and I fell for his charms. As my friends sadly decided to leave Portugal I immediately went round to make sure Dudley found his way across the Sintra National park and into my garden for a light revival, what followed was the opening of a can of worms, filled with cans of worms.

Here he is in his glorious original blue form in June 2024, a 1983 CDK Series 3 Land Rover 80inch oil burning Diesel with a gearbox that felt like stirring bolts in an old biscuit tin, an engine that lacked power, steering lacking refinement and in general an old boy lacking some love.

Once in my garden I set about stripping the car down, which is a remarkably easy and fun task. A screwdriver and a spanner and a weekend’s work and the car suddenly looks brilliantly naked and ready for some kind of revival. At this stage, I didn’t really know what I was aiming for, I thought it was a quick paint job and I would resell the car within 6 months. I wanted to make sure the car was drivable at all times, so my skills and wallet didn’t get stretched too far.

Sadly during a routine movement around my garden a sock protecting the air intake was sucked deep into the cylinders of the car. What followed involved me opening up the cylinder head and fishing a melted sock out of the bottom end of the engine…and inevitably a full engine rebuild suddenly became my reality. So off to the shop the car went, engine and gearbox removed Dudley’s skeleton was sent back to my garden so I could complete the respray and rebuild process.

The car had been crudely repainted with a roller in its previous life, and its original green colour covered with a matt blue. I wanted to bring the car back to life, and so chose an original series light green colour and set about my first bare metal respray. Every panel was taken back to bare metal, sanded and filled before I etch primed the main body of the car and then resprayed with rattle cans. Whilst the car is not perfect, and Rolls Royce aren’t calling me to join their bodywork department, I think the finish is impressive and the car is looking totally refreshed and ready for the next stage of its rebuild rebuild.

But of course once repainted, I now had some immaculate green panels, an engine and gearbox being rebuilt in a workshop and hundreds of new parts and pieces to pull together…so as the rebuild began it dawned on me I had no idea what I was doing and putting stuff back together is a million times harder than stripping it down. Nothing fitted, nothing worked, nothing goes where I thought it did, all of the memories of how cables run or where things used to be had faded. So the Haynes manual became my bible and long evenings shivering in the garden trying to find out how a brake light is wired ensued.

May 2026 – Dudley has been truly revived, he is looking incredible, running smoothly and is ready for a summer on the roads of Portugal. Two years after I started this 6 months project, he is finally holding his own again ready for another 40 years of big adventures.

Can I ever sell him??