I knew one old boy farmer near where I used to live who had what looked like a diesel series 3 hardtop 88 in the barn but one day I noticed it was on a much older plate (never really had a proper look at it before then) . When I asked him about it, he'd owned it from nearly new (bought in 1960 I think and I think it was a 1958) as his only farm truck (and an elderly david brown tractor). during the 70's and 80's as bit's wore out he simply went to the land rover dealers and got a replacement. Since the then current model was the series 3. In the late seventies it had an accident where a big tree fell on it, and the insurance company paid out (much to his surprise he was hoping they would write it off), so it got a new (series 3 style) bulkhead, dash, wings and hardtop roof. At this point the local dealer suggested (since the series 3 wings obviously now had the headlights in them) that he replace the front panel with a series 3 one too, rather than having 4 headlights, which he did, despite not liking the plastic grille. Some years later the original 2ltr diesel finally got beyond repair and a good second had 2 1/4 diesel was fitted by a local engineering company (safari engineering near reading I think?)
I often wonder what happened to it after I moved away, to anyone but the real enthusiast it looked like a series 3, but it was still on the original chassis, and as it had been done piecemeal over the years it had quite legitimately retained its original number.