Print

[KAS2A]

...brutal end for a decent looking Defender

https://youtu.be/mzBFwFos-o0

[kev]

Was there ever a decent looking Defender..?🤔

[The Shed]

Was there ever a decent looking Defender..?🤔

Yep. And we have just seen one destroyed for no good reason.
Sure beats doing real work !

[timfoster]

I note the Macrae & Dick spare-wheel cover on the back, apparently once Scotland’s oldest car dealership:

https://www.inverness-courier.co.uk/news/inverness-motor-group-macrae-and-dick-bought-over-153184/

Please don't import illegal cars to the US that are going to get pulped that way. Just wait a wee while, and then import it when it'll be just as unsafe on US roads as all the other classic cars there. 

- tim

[Exile]

This was well publicised by US Customs deliberately, several years ago.

Almost overnight it stopped the import of later Defenders which had had VINs from 25 year old vehicles attached to them, as a means of getting Defenders into the US.

And it stopped crazy prices being paid for pre-Defenders by the Dealers who were doing this.

[diffwhine]

A fitting end for a vehicle which is not what it purports to be.

I gather that recently more have been going in through Jacksonville and getting through.

I'm all for this as a deterrent. There are so many 25 year + old LRs being shipped to the US that this is one of the key reasons why prices are so ludicrously high still

[autorover1]

Totally agree, trying to buck the system only makes it more difficult for genuine exports/imports

[Birdsnet55]

It may have been a stolen vehicle with old VIN.

Paul

[ChrisJC]

I was wondering if the US is where these stolen Series II's are going...

Chris.

[The Shed]

There was a report in LRO a while back regarding Defenders being impounded with a view to destruction.
I think about 25 where involved on this occasion, and as luck would have it one belonged to a Lawyer who fought the case on behalf of them all.
It turned out the Customs/Border Force only used the last 6 Digits to identify the vehicles, so they came back as less than 25 year old.
But the Lawyer proved that they where actually older, as shown by checking the full VIN. The last six are reused multiple times.

[Exile]

The last six are reused multiple times.

I don't think that ^ is correct.

The last 6 digits are the only part of the VIN that is unique to the vehicle.

By contrast, the preceding alpha-numeric sequence can be used on any vehicle of the same year, model and spec etc.

[diffwhine]

Both are sort of correct...
IN JLR terms, the last 6 digits are the unique identifier, but are dependent on the model year identifier which is the 10th digit in the 17 digit sequence. You can therefore quite easily have a Defender VIN of DA123456 (2012MY) and a BA123456 (1985MY). The 11th digit denotes the factory. A - is Solihull

[diffwhine]

Just to add to the confusion, you can also have a BA123456 which could be a 2010MY and a DA123456 which could be a 1987MY. The 8th and 9th digits of a VIN define engine type and transmission, so with careful referencing, you can have very similar VINs for a 1987 and 2012 Defender, but other digits will confirm that a 2012 Defender would have R (2.2 Puma in position 8 whereas it would have a V if it were a 1987 V8 Petrol...

The overall 17 digit will always differ, but you can get some very similar numbers. When you logged into TOPIx (JLT Technical reference source) you had the option of just entering in the last 6 digits of the VIN to identify your vehicle. It would then bring up probably 7 or 8 vehicles with the same 6 digits and you had to identify which vehicle and model was the one you are looking for.

[The Shed]

Both are sort of correct...
IN JLR terms, the last 6 digits are the unique identifier, but are dependent on the model year identifier which is the 10th digit in the 17 digit sequence. You can therefore quite easily have a Defender VIN of DA123456 (2012MY) and a BA123456 (1985MY). The 11th digit denotes the factory. A - is Solihull

As diffwhine explains the last six digits entered into Topix will give several options. Adding the preceding two letters is usually enough to find the correct vehicle, on current models that is.