Why I LOVE the P38 Range Rover

good day I'm Sam and welcome back to real world rides today we're gonna look at a car that is well quintessentially British and well it's a car that ticks a lot of boxes for a lot of people for instance as a baronet I could have bought this car to survey my English country estate and the several thousand acres of land I have inherited in Scotland and is grouse Moor or I could have bought this car you know because our geezer I've done all right in the old trade if you know what I mean and I'm off down the docks to sell my latest consignment or I could be a Cheshire housewife married to a footballer a traffic policeman or a solicitor well what I'm getting at is this car is a car that if you're anyone who's anyone would have had one yes of course it's the Range Rover ah yes the Range Rover and more specifically the p-38 Range Rover which is the second generation made from I think about 1994 to 2002 of which I've got this example here and I'm gonna show you in the following video why I think there's such a good buy and more specifically why I think these have been overlooked in favour of the classic which is the Range Rover that went before this don't you think Barney I do just look at that the typical Range Rover in front of an English country cottage it just looks so right doesn't it but it's a car that would also look right in front of a Hollywood movie lot in front of a big country estate in the city in Westminster or on the streets of New York LA anywhere they've just become a timeless design and I think they've only got better with age and the p-38 let you see here this is a 2001 car in Bordeaux red it's just fabulous looking car and I just think it's an aged so well I think when these first came out I remember Jeremy Clarkson saying that they look like a metro cab which was rather unfair albeit slightly true but even he conceded that there's just something about them and he actually grew to love the p38 in its in its own way so the reason I think these are the cars to buy is because like many cars that are sort of in the doldrums of sort of between scrap and collectability they're from sort of 15 to 20 25 years old now and inevitably a lot of these cars are horrible they've just gone into the wrong hands they've been neglected the air suspension is on its knees and you're just left with sort of a collection of scrap metal and when that's a Land Rover comprised of scrap metal that's even worse than anything else so I'm going to show you what to look for on these cars and also just why they seem to have come full circle and in my view are now an appreciating classic so one thing to point out this is what's known as the Bordeaux a limited edition hence the red carpeting which only a Range Rover or Bentley can really carry off with panache and it looks expertly modelled here by Barney the flat-coated retriever inside you get lashings of light coloured ivory leather which I think in Land Rover parlance is known as light stone I couldn't help but adding a Fortnum and Mason hamper to my example which I think just looks period-correct you also get further red carpeting in wells and these lovely leather covered door cards and I have to say these raised really well I mean this helps that this one is a really nice example it's not been abused and trashed the only thing which these do suffer from is the dreaded headlining sags so it looks like slightly like a Moroccan souk at the moment but that will be sorted soon by my upholsterer taking a look inside as you can see more luxury in front i've left my consignment of illicit drugs in on the passenger seat from when i was pretending to be a drug dealer earlier but overall these are just a really nice place to spend time i mean they are a bit plasticky they did lose something in the second generation i mean look at this horrible plastic dashboard which when they've got the effort of trimming the seats and the door cards in beautiful leather they've really let the side down with the dashboard but other than that i still think these are really rather classy so a little bit of history about the p38 well first generation Range Rover I think was released and about all the prototype was released in about 1970 1971 and that was obviously the iconic Range Rovers very well known still to this day very recognizable and that had a hugely long production run I think they started off as a three-door initially and then obviously the 5-door became more popular and I think they were produced right up until about 1994 and when this generation Range Rover came out later that year it obviously had a quite a tough act to follow now the reason it's called a p38 incidentally is after the office building in Solihull where it was conceived so not the most impressive of starts but nonetheless obviously it didn't live anywhere near as long as its predecessor but there are still a lot of these about you can still buy them quite cheaply but they do vary hugely in price if you're looking at one of these my advice would be to buy the best you can find and that's generally my advice with any example of any any car I just think buying cheap as a do wrapper is always a false economy so yes these had a 6 or 7 year production run so there's a few of them about but they're noticeably thinner on the ground now than they were even even 5 years ago so I think for that reason alone and the fact that the values of the classic are so high in comparison would make this you know just a very good good by providing you get the right car and they came with a variety of engines this is the ill-fated diesel now I say that quietly in hushed tones because it's not most popular engine for a p38 but and I will admit they are very underpowered but you're talking gallons per mile whatever you choose whether that's the 4.6 petrol or gasoline for you guys in the States they also do a for Lisa petrol and then there's this which is the 2.5 liter oil burner which is actually a 6-cylinder BMW engine so it's actually not a bad engine but in the Range Rover they are just very very underpowered but you can chip them and that does improve performance but in my opinion whatever p38 you buy whether that's a 4.6 or a diesel the performance isn't amazing and I had a 4.6 quite recently and I chose to keep I chose to keep this one because the 4.6 as nice as the engine is and it sounds good which is probably its best virtue but it still just wasn't in the same condition the car in front of me is in and this is a lovely 80,000 miler and actually this car that you see here is also a one owner car so it's had one owner from brand new and as I say that's quite unusual and I bought it directly off of him about six months ago so a quick look at some of the styling features of the p38 now you'll notice a lot of the visual cues of earlier Range Rovers were carried on if you look at the bonnet on each corner you'll see they've got these sort of ridges they're almost like shoulder pads for the car now that's been a long sort of long term Range Rover styling queue and that's just another sort of thing that makes them you know visual link to the previous generations and even now I think you still find them on there on the current ones another thing of course is the Range Rover lettering on the bonnet again I think that's still pretty much identical evil on cars now 25 years later and they're quite an elegant car even though they're quite boxy they just still have quite a degree of class about them they're not too big either by modern standards they're actually quite small I think a Range Rover Evoque probably parked next to it wouldn't actually look all that much smaller another feature is these big sea pillars here the back one thing to look for if you are buying one but they don't really suffer at all from rust problems the p-38 because they're made of aluminium they're all aluminium panels but they do suffer from galvanic corrosion which is basically where the paint and and where the aluminium reacts with the steel any you know fixings and screws and the paint just flakes and falls off and looks horrible this one's not too bad but if you're buying one that's just another thing to keep an eye out for well it's time of the day for the lock down road test that is a quick test and tour of my driveway while we can't go anywhere because of this virus and that's most important stay at home folks if you're watching this whilst we're still all look down nice thing about any four-wheel drive is also you got a big higher driving position and in the Range Rover that's no different obviously being a diesel just got to wait for the little glow plug light to go out before I can start it takes a surprisingly long time compared to modern cars there we go is straight in they did incidentally do the p-38 in a manual gearbox there's not that many of them about particular if you're watching this in the States I'm not even sure if they offered that option in the States but they sent it over here and I I've never seen one but I know they do exist most the vast majority are automatic like the Coe you see here and just a really nice car to drive I mean I have to say this is the diesel as I mentioned it is horrendously slow I mean even by you know old car stands even when even knew they were appalling you slow and by modern standards they've just got worse but they're very smooth they're comfortable and and to be honest you just don't feel the need to rush with them they just drive nicely they're very smooth very comfortable the seats are well padded and you just don't feel in the need to rush and I've had new Range Rovers and that I think they've lost some of that that sort of Whoopie feeling you know they're they're obviously quite quick and what I like about the p30 even though the Pech ones they just have a nice sort of refined feeling well my review wouldn't be complete without an engine start so even though this is the diesel let's have a go and just start it up being the diesel you of course have to wait for the little glow plug light there to go out and some reason the wipers run as well mmm listen to that the sound of a d'oeuvre engine still sounds quite purposeful so there are several other things to watch for on these all p-38s came from the factory with air suspension which means you have air airbags effectively on all four corners and that is what's keeping the car up fright and it's controlled by this system here that you see with the buttons here so you can actually control the ride height good idea in practice but in sorry oh good idea in principle rather but in practice they are a bit unreliable I have to say this car is working fine it's it's got no problems but a lot of people do remove the air suspension because it can be very troublesome and expensive to put right so air suspension issues aside there are also other things to look for in fact many other things with the p38 one of which is the climate control now again surprisingly this one actually all works beautifully and even the air conditioning is nice and cold but most of these you see they lose the pixels so the display goes and you also can get a little book symbol there which means it's got horrible problems with a ventilation system again all of which can be very costly to cook right now not withstanding air suspension and the climate control they can also sell for all manner of electronic problems with something called the body control module which controls various other functions such as the windows and the sunroof they get immobilizer problems and the p-38 the 4.6 that's I spoke about earlier that very car I bought with a immobilizer problems so they do suffer issues and again that's part of the reasoning why I suggested buying a good one to start off with so there we have it that's the p38 Range Rover thank you very much for watching and I hope to catch you all soon goodbye

Channel: Real World Rides

Views: 48,246

Rating: 4.8489428 out of 5

Keywords: Range Rover, P38, Range Rover P38, Land Rover, Cars, Modern Classics, Range Rover reviews, Hoovies Garage, Doug DeMuro

Id: FRfRb57uUlw

Length: 14min 52sec (892 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 12 2020