Classic Car Auctions, a British auction house that holds large-scale vintage automobile auctions, is putting 19 Land Rovers across the auction block this weekend, including a Range Rover Classic limo that once drove Mike Tyson around Glasgow.
Classic Car Auctions, a British auction house that holds large-scale vintage automobile auctions, is putting 19 Land Rovers across the auction block this weekend, including a Range Rover Classic limo that once drove Mike Tyson around Glasgow.
The limo is probably the most unique vehicle in the auction. It's a 1994 Range Rover LWB, stretched to add another few feet of space between the front and rear doors. (Though it says 1994, the vehicle has the "soft dash" that we consider a 1995 vehicle in North America -- a quirk of international model year nomenclature.) The roof is a stretched version of a Discovery 1 roof, complete with the raised rear section. (Fun fact, the body shells of the two vehicles are largely the same, so it wasn't a lot of work to mate the two together.)
Inside, the vehicle has a blood-red Connolly leather finish, a VHS player, two small CRT televisions, and a separate rear stereo setup. Even the door cards are trimmed in red leather and stitched along the edges. Custom rear bucket seats replace the rear bench, and the tailgate has been converted to a large single-piece unit.
The limo was initially built for the Sultan of Brunei, a noted car collector whose one-off custom-built acquisitions in the 1990s were legendary. The vehicle is somewhat known in Land Rover circles, among cognoscenti of Range Rover Classic conversions, as being of that era. In 2000, it gained the Mike Tyson connection. On June 24, 2000, Tyson fought Lou Savarese at Hampden Park, home of the Scottish national football team. Tyson won the fight in 38 seconds with a technical knockout against Savarese. The Range Rover was used to transport Tyson to the fight.
While the limo might be the pop-culture flagship lot in the auction, the serious Land Rover nerds will be excited about the 1969 Velar Fire Tender. The second Range Rover chassis ever built, originally registered YVB 152H (the first Range Rover is YVB 151H), it rolled off the line at Solihull on December 12, 1969. It was converted to a rapid-response fire tender to show that the Range Rover could still be used for non-personal purposes like the Land Rover. The vehicle is well-known by Range Rover scholars, and this is a rare opportunity for it to change hands.
Several other cool, regular-wheelbase Range Rover Classics are on offer from the Drayton Collection of rare and unusual Range Rovers. These offerings include some unusual 1980s conversions and modified vehicles. A few of the most exciting models include:
For the absolute Range Rover Classic nerds, it's an auction to take a deep look at. Though none of the vehicles are in mint condition, a broad cross-section of Range Rover Classic conversion culture will cross the block this weekend.
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