Hi all. Thought I’d introduce myself and my L320. Before we start, I’ll be the first to admit that when it comes to these cars I am a fully rigged, rate A1, ocean going dork. Every car I’ve owned has had a build thread somewhere on the internet and this one will be no different and perhaps a social media platform will see updates in the future.

With that out of the way, this is my 2005 Range Rover Sport. If you know Sport’s as I’m sure you all will, some of you will probably be CVC club members and have heard about this car and my exploits trying to buy it and you’ll already know that a 54 plate Sport is a very early one. If anyone doesn’t know, allow me to give you a quick history digression. This is chassis number 145, built in December 2004 and registered in January 2005, 7 months before the launch. This one is not a press car, rather a Field Evaluation Unit used to evaluate the reliability and build. The car was sold by Land Rover in mid 2006 and has had 3 owners before I found it on Facebook marketplace in December and agreed to collect it recently.

Now I’m biased, but given the importance of the Sport in Land Rover’s history and the 20th anniversary coming up next year, this one being one of the very earliest survivors makes it somewhat interesting. Interesting to me anyway. Not many of these early Sport’s have survived. I know of less than 20 of the first 500 that are still around in 2024. The first production Sport is chassis number 505 and that car is part of the BMIHT collection.

Obviously it needs some restoration as it’s suffered some neglect but that’s all to come. In the meantime, I’ve polished the headlights so I can see better, taken off the chrome mirror caps, put a proper grill and wing vents on it and polished a test section of the passenger front door to see if the paint can be rescued (it can, mostly).

That’s all for now but I’ll be back with some more updates and questions as most of my LR experience is on older platforms but I’m well versed in auto electronics, repairs and retrofits on VW’s and BMW’s so I’m in a good place to take this one on and sort the electrical woes as well as the bodywork! First job is to check the HK amp as the front speakers don’t work so will get to that during MoT prep at the weekend.

If anyone knows of a Giverny Green Sport being broken up do let me know as I’d be interested in both offside doors if they are tidy.

Thanks 🙏

Interesting colour for a test car. I guess they were seeing what it looked like.
Nice interior and wood trim.

An early car should have orange side repeaters

Thanks! Yes, there is at least another FEU car in Giverny Green (chassis 191) and I know of a few others in unusual colours.

Chassis 034 was white and then painted by LR in Vesuvius Orange for the launch
Chassis 124 is Arctic Frost
Chassis 145 (this one) is Giverny Green
Chassis 148 is Tonga Green
Chassis 149 is Zambezi Silver
Chassis 150 is Maya Gold
Chassis 151 is Arctic Frost
Chassis 191 is Giverny Green
Chassis 205 is Vesuvius Orange

There are others that I’ve not listed but not many left to check the build data against.

The indicators should indeed be orange and they are coming soon. Interior is Aspen/Ivory with American Cherry Wood veneer. The only really bad bit of the interior is the rip in driver seat base that I’ll fix.

Jolly good find. Keep us updated when you can. 2006 2.7 TDV6 HSE in Cairns Blue.

Will do. First fix is now properly complete. The car had the below lights on the dash when driven a few feet.



I noticed on the 4x4 info screen that the front wheels were shown as pointing right when the wheel was straight ahead. When I turned the wheel 180 degrees left the wheels were pointing straight on the screen. When I drove the car I noticed the right front brake would pump as the car believed it was sliding. Eventually it would stop and the warning lights would come on thus. If I started the car and spun the wheel all the way to the right it would turn the lights on and drive just fine. This gave me an idea. I loosened the steering angle sensor and noticed the plastic ring on the column was loose so that was epoxied back on and I then started the car with the SAS loose around the column and I manually rotated the sensor ring 180 degrees so the wheels were straight on the display, matching the wheels on the car. I screwed the SAS back on to the column and started the car and turned the wheel lock to lock no issues arose.



This was happening when the car thought the steering angle was going out of range and it switched off the safety systems. How this was missed I’m not sure but it’s all sorted now. The left front height sensor was originally flashing red but now the car has been used the suspension light has stayed off so that’s a win, a free fix and once it has at least a front tyre and the side light bulbs are changed it should be MoT ready.

More updates.

The car only came with one key and it’s pretty shabby. I ordered a housing but it’s subtly different in every way from OEM so I couldn’t just reuse the blade. I have a locksmith round the corner so tomorrow he’ll cut the blade and I can finish the transplant to have one shiny new key. I’ll order another with a chip in it and program it with the GAP tool to have a pair of working keys.



I also spent a whopping £3.50 on a centre cap to replace the missing one





And I played a game of RRS fault light bingo with the car yesterday that I was sure was battery related. Indeed, £85 for a new battery from Tayna later and I have no more errors again



Decided to give the area a clean while I was there as it would be rude not to







A pair of tyres ordered and MoT booked, fingers crossed it passes and then I can get an alignment done and tackle some other issues

As it’s Valentine’s Day I thought I’d not ignore the RRS on this special occasion. I know things may seem a little out of order here as it needs some mechanical service too but I like to tinker after work and I’m awaiting parts so I thought I’d take the centre console out and see where the cup holder roller drawer was. As suspceted it was broken beyond repair so I’ve ordered a new one and I thought it would be rude not to clean this while it was out to make the cabin feel a bit more habitable.





As if I needed more confirmation, when cleaning I found some proof positive that this car is very much a pre production car with hand written stickers and an FEU engineering sample date sticker. Super cool!!!!





I have put this console back in the car and I gave the radio, screen, top button row and climate panel a wipe down and started a cursory clean of the gear knob as well. I need to replace all of these or at least fix them so I’ve ordered a D3 climate panel as it was £7 and an RRS one was £96! I’ll steal the Auto button from it and use it in my current one as the rest of the buttons are fine and work. I’ve also spent £8 on a top button row. I won’t do anything with the radio for now other than dive into the front speaker issues at the weekend.









Roll on tyre delivery and MoT day 😃

This is a really cool project, considering the nature of this particular vehicle. Keep up the good work and keep us informed.  2012 SDV6 - it's missing a couple of cylinders
2008 TDV8 - it was a labour of love and is much missed

Keep up the good work I replaced the cig socket just because the plastic surround that holds it in place had snapped and the bulb that alluminates it had fallen inside the console. Fitted a permanent power feed to the dash cam at the same time to free up said socket.

Love the retro green illuminated buttons!

They weren't retro in 2005, of course.  2012 SDV6 - it's missing a couple of cylinders
2008 TDV8 - it was a labour of love and is much missed

Mines Green pretty standard back then

Thanks all, the 12v socket light fixing that illuminates the little storage box is broken on this one too. I’ll fix it properly when the roller blind for the cup holder arrives. Had to put it all back in the car as I needed the handbrake button at least 🤣

Decided to give the Sport a spruce inside as it wasn’t rainy for a few hours today and now I’d done the console it was setting the standard to improve the rest of it. It was quite bad inside and if smellovision had been invented you’d get the real joy of what it was like before as it was used for a year as the previous owners tip run car and he’d never cleaned it. This is the first deep clean, it will need more work but it’s better for now, that’s the aim. It’s also got a lot more, we’ll call it patina, than the photos suggest but we’ll gloss over that for now.

Something you don’t get in an RRS every day, and something I quite like actually, is this interior combination of Aspen Green leather with Ivory contrast panels and American Cherry Wood veneer. A welcome change from plain old Ivory or Black and because of the spec and colour it’s not the ruched leather which again, I’m quite liking. Of course locating a green boot side carpet to replace the one with the burn mark on it will be interesting but we’ll worry about that later. Obviously the outside is even more horrific and I’m going to need a lot more mental preparation if nothing else before I take that on!

While I was doing this I found a screw in the right rear tyre so that a second Pirelli ordered to match the other I have ordered for the front, better to find now than at the MoT though. More soon 😁

Looking good I decided to refurb my headlight lenses between rain showers today