Series 3 opinions

I'm thinking of buying a Series 3. During vacations my nineteen year old son would need to use the vehicle. Bearing in mind that he's had little driving experience, and only in a modern car, is this likely to be a recipe for disaster; either for him, other road users, or the vehicle? I suspect that he might find the lack of performance utterly frustrating and get cross, rather than relax and go with it.

for me it would depend on the lads carictere.
as you say if he is only going to get frustrated and start to mash the controls in the pursuit of speed then maybe he will just end up beating hur up. however if you can install some kind of idea that it is hard or at least skillful to be double de clutching and matching engine, road and desired gear speeds he might revel in the hunt for stringing perfect gear changes in a row and this will make him actually faster. he will also start reading the road and traffic better. he will soon realize the joy of seamlessly progressing threw traffic or along a b road walst taking in all sorts of info young drivers are just unaware of or unpracticed in as new cars tend to relay flatter a drivers talents, or cover up there lack of it. anticipating other people actions will make his driving safer and help him keep up a head of steam. in the end if he is thinking like this he will go faster and be in controle of the vehicle.
the whole thinking about being smooth over everything else has certainly helped in my racing and applied to the road and indeed the series landy at much lower speeds is something i really enjoy and i think driving both cars help the other.

Hi Leon,
Thanks for your comments, which I agree with completely. During the icy weather I went out with him and stressed how important it was to do everything slowly and smoothly, but I still had to keep telling him to slow down. Maybe it's a vehicle which would force him to drive sympathetically.

i had the same chat with my sister. she has hur first "sports car" and is thankfully (i think) working on driving as smooth as posable after a track day she came on. realizing that the speed she is after comes with perfect driving not aggressively attacking everything. the same applies to the old landy but just to keep going.

make him better. stick him in a leefer.

I took my driving test in a 109 series 2a. It was the highlight of the examiners day, thats the LR not my driving!

how long ago did you take your test in your 109 2a as i will soon be 17 and thinking about taking my test and as a general rule a land rover series is a glorified vintage tractor with a little more speed and i took my tractor test in june and have been driving tractors on the road for a year now and when i bought my landies and took them around the farm on the private roads (so all legal there) i felt at home in the landy as much as i feel at home in the tractors

I took my test 28 years ago. The Three point turn become a 6 point turn due to lack of lock! I dont know how you would get on nowadays as i believe you have to do a parking manauvere between cars?? Not a problem providing your gap is long enough for Series. On a lighter note a friend took his in a 6 cylinder series. The examiner was most unhelpful when it ran out of petrol halfway through the test and in the middle of the road. He refused to help push it to the kerb and made his way back to the test centre on foot. Needless to say my mate had to do a retest in another area.

get him a series landy as a first car,its a perfect training vehicle,he will learn mecanics,welding and modifing.take him green laning with it,his driving skill and distance judgment will improve masively.his concentration will improve to as he will always be listning for something going wrong or falling off.first drove a series in the airforce when i was 17 and loved it so mutch that i now have my 8th landy.

i drove a old defender after passing my test in a little corsa. guess heavy steering may be an issue but otherwise a series 3 would be fine - i now drive a mondeo and series 2a reguarly and the series is so much more fun (slower, but speed isnt everything!)

so... go for it in my opinion!

If you are thinking iof taking a test in a Series, check the requirements, I think they have to have head restraints nowadays, pity to turn up for the test and have the examiner refuse to go in the vehicles.
As for letting a youngster drive, be every careful. When I stated to drive it was in Morris Minors and the like and so was brought up on manual steering and drum brakes with no servo, the change to a Land-Rover wasn't that great. Nowadays when even little hatchbacks have discs, servos,& power steering they may find the shear physical effort needed to drive a Series a problem.
Just look at how many enquires there are on here from youngsters wanting to fit disc brakes and power steering.

I am 17 in august. I have been interested in land rovers for many years and it was my idea to take my driving lessns and do my test in the landrover. It is a series 3 88". If im honest i wouldnt have any other car.

I'm 17, (18 in April) - and I wouldn't drive anything else. In my opinion they are the PERFECT first car, or car for a young driver. Driving an old Land Rover is REAL driving. YOU, the driver, have control of the car. No traction-stability-dynamic-electronic-damping computers here, oh no. You have to work the controls, make them do exactly what YOU want them to do.

Also, modern cars are so boring! Yes they may be shiny, curvy, quiet, economical, reliable, 'stylish' and 'easy to drive', but every time I see one of my friends driving about in a little Japanese tin box, I genuinely feel sorry for them. It's not like my Land Rover cost more than their cars, to buy or to insure.

Ok, Land Rovers aren't for everybody, I'll admit. I'm not the type to wear skinny jeans or flatten my dyed-black fringe across my face, for instance. And I suppose it would be nice to have a car that you could 100% rely on every time. But at the end of the day, One Life. Live It.

Mine is a rotbox time soaker upper, but the above is quite true, modern cars dont have soul.

The first vehicle I had on the road was an 88" 2 1/4 petrol IIA. It was great fun but as I was skint I soon switched to a car because the Landy was using way too much petrol.

It looks like there are a lot of "OLD UNS" on here who started to drive in proper cars. I started in a series 2 when I was 13. Took my test in a 1948 Ford 10.
Having driven a wide variety of vehicles from sports cars to artics to tractors and crawlers over nearly 50 years, I am now of the opinion that driving a Series teaches you to drive again, you anticipate other road users earlier, earlier braking etc. Even indicators taker longer to activate on a series than a modern car!! Its no bad thing for a youngster to drive a slower vehicle providing, as has been said, he has the right attitude. Plus the maintenance side is interesting if you can encourage him or her.