1997 Land Rover Defender 4x4

1997 Land Rover Defender ”NAS 130” Station Wagon — V8 Automatic, a configuration the factory never built.

One of 2,799 final-year North American-Specification Defenders, reimagined as a seven-seat 130 Station Wagon on a new galvanized chassis.

Chassis SALDV3244VA121225, showing 16,900 miles since completion (approximately 27,200 km), Massachusetts rebuilt title, left-hand drive, located in Newton, Massachusetts, USA. Total mileage is unverified.

The North American Defender is one of the most coveted versions of Land Rover’s working icon, and 1997 was both its high point and its end. For its final season the NAS Defender received the 4.0-liter Rover V8 with GEMS distributorless fuel injection and, for the first time in any Defender, an automatic transmission. Only 2,799 were built before federal airbag and side-impact rules ended official imports, and no Defender would be sold new in America again for more than two decades. This truck began life as one of those final-year cars, delivered new to Encinitas, California, in August 1997.

Where most would have seen an ending, the current owner saw a foundation. Over the course of 2019 the Defender was rebuilt by an enthusiast workshop not as the D90 it had been, but as something Solihull never catalogued: a seven-seat Defender 130 Station Wagon. The transformation was executed around a new galvanized chassis and rear body from Foley Specialist Vehicles, the family-run Essex Land Rover specialists working with the marque since 1966, whose galvanized rebuilds are a fixture of the UK Defender world. Genuine Land Rover components were used throughout, and the original, correct drivetrain was preserved: the 4.0-liter GEMS V8 and ZF four-speed automatic offered in America only in the 1997 NAS cars.

The result is finished in Corris Grey beneath a contrasting black roof, the livery of the final-year Defender Adventure Edition sold to world markets but never to America, over a black leather interior trimmed in the style of the late-production Puma Defenders. It seats seven by way of side-folding jump seats in the cargo area, and can carry all of them anywhere on earth. A black NAS-style external roll cage nods to its American origins, upgraded heavy-duty suspension and 35-inch Goodyear DuraTrac tires give it real stance and capability, and four-wheel disc brakes bring it back down.

Power comes from the 3,946 cc OHV Rover V8 with GEMS electronic fuel injection, approximately 182 horsepower, paired with the durable ZF four-speed automatic, permanent four-wheel drive, and a two-speed transfer case.

Completed in 2019 and regularly exercised since, the Defender has covered 16,900 miles since the rebuild. It carries a Massachusetts rebuilt title reflecting a 2018 fire that ended its first life, all of it transparently documented in the accompanying Carfax report. The NAS Defender market is rich in restored D90s, but as far as we know this is the only V8-automatic 130 Station Wagon born of a final-year NAS truck and a galvanized Foley chassis. It stands alone, with a story no other example can tell.

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