A rather extraordinary 1998 Land Rover Defender 110 has appeared up for sale in the U.S. and while Defenders of this vintage aren’t all that hard to come by, this one is more interesting than most.
You see, between 1980 and 1998, a special off-road challenge known as the Camel Trophy was held on an annual basis in some of the most inhospitable places on earth. With the exception of the inaugural event in 1980, all subsequent events used Land Rover models. The 1998 event was held in Tierra del Fuego at the southern tip of South America and this Defender is believed to have been the film car for that year’s event.
The Defender is a UK model configured in right-hand drive and was imported into the U.S. in 2023. It benefited from a series of significant modifications before heading to the Camel Trophy and thanks to Land Rover Special Vehicles, was equipped with a roll-over cage, a Brownchurch roof rack, new front bull bars, a Warn 8274 winch, driving lights, and a Mantec snorkel.
Read: Modded 1989 Land Rover Defender Is The Ultimate Recreational Vehicle
Powering the car is the original 2.5-liter turbodiesel inline-four with 111 hp and 195 lb-ft (264 Nm) of torque. This engine is coupled to a five-speed manual transmission and a two-speed transfer case. The seller has revealed that he purchased the Defender in 2000 and has made several trips to North Africa with it but the mileage still sits quite low with ~44,000 miles (~71,000 km) on the odometer.
A plethora of modifications have been made by the seller, the listing reveals. These include air-locking front and rear differentials, an engine immobilizer, tinted windows, rock sliders, rain guards, rear wheel carrier, a Kenwood head unit, 70-liter water tank, a filtered water tap, and a rear cargo net.
