Land Rovers are for heroes, we all know that. In my view of Defenders through the ages, with the exception of money-no-object specials like the Bowler Wildcat, the older and more basic, the better the Land Rover.

Here is an example of one such vehicle found not traversing a wooded hillside or wading through an inhospitable sludge lagoon, but waiting outside my local supermarket. Click the jump to see it in all its click-to-enbiggenable glory.

With off-road driving being more popular today than ever before, there are no shortage of highly accessorised Series Land Rovers out there, often on altered wheelbases, often with significant (and worthwhile) suspension modifications, and often carrying a substantial lattice of brightly coloured scaffolding to defend the occupants against things off-road being pushed that bit too far.

In fact, the profusion of “ONE LIFE LIVE IT” banners and stickers saying “You can go quickly, I can go anywhere” has become such that it makes a refreshing change to see a pure, unaltered LR more or less as the makers intended. More or less…

Without diving on the floor and crawling under somebody else’s car, I can’t really determine if anything much has been changed, although it’s fair to assume that the several decades through which this car has survived have taken their toll on wear and tear items. But I don’t seen any highly coloured coilover shock absorbers or fancy axle trickery on display here.

Running the plates through our Gubbermint’s marvellous online look-up system indicates this particular beastie as having left Solihull in 1959 with the old 2¼ litre boat-anchor clanking away under the bonnet, and that leaky, lazy lump is allegedly still there. But that may be all lies, as Land Rover identities are notoriously easy to change. Owing to how straightforward a complete chassis and bulkhead swap is on one of these, you might well end up with a brand new body on an ancient chassis or vice versa.

Of course, this means that you can abuse the system a bit. You could buy an almost brand new LR and swap the chassis for something much, much older as a way to circumvent age-restrictions (to be imported, for example) or qualify in Britain for Vehicle Excise Duty Exemption, which is excellent if you’re a tightwad.

Nice solid disc wheels are a Land Rover perennial. These folk with their huge, shiny alloys are missing the point of what a wheel is for.

I offer to you that this machine; modified only (as far as I can see) with that substantial looking headgear and what looks like a Ford Transit passenger seat, is the antithesis of the LED-light equipped, pearlescent white, 20″ rimmed Evoque’s that every urban dweller and their chihuahua want to finance themselves up to the balls to drive home in.

[Photos Copyright 2014 Hooniverse/Chris Haining]