You can actually buy a new tdi 300 Defender still (just) - see Landrover conversions by Foley Specialist Vehicles
The last of the Rest of the World.
I have one on 2008 plates in the UK. To achieve UK registration the vehicle had to pass some MOT look-alike (except stricter and more expensive) test. I'm yet to have to MOT this vehicle with the standard MOT procedure (that happens next year once the vehicle is '3 years old'. From time to time I get slightly nervous about how this will work out.
I did hear from a German bloke in France this summer (2010) that Germany will be taking all tdi 300s off the road in 2012. Their rules seem to apply retrospectively, whereas the UK seems to stick with regs which related to the year of registration of the vehicle. The UK has changed their position at least once on this sort of thing. Tax free classics used to apply to vehicles which were n years old on a rolling basis. That all stopped with vehicles dating back to 1972 or so. Its plausible that the UK could start behaving like Germany - but they haven't yet.
|