So why do I like it so much? I find it difficult to put my reasoning into words that will make much sense to all but a select group of off-road fanatics, but I'll try
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| I find it difficult to say exactly why I like the Discovery so much, especially considering all its faults. (Photo: Shawn Pisio, Canadian Auto Press) |
nonetheless. Many years back I was with one of my closest friends Dave Smith (no really, I'm not trying to hide his identity, that's really his name) and his crazy (in a good way) brother Rod, attempting to scale a near vertical dirt washout gully up by the giant "B" above Bountiful, Utah, on his Honda 480 CR two-stroke dirt bike. It was so steep that the bike kept kicking out from underneath with each attempt up the hill, flipping backwards and either landing on its side before tumbling head over heals back down the hill or landing on a human cushion before doing so - not a good thing. On its way down one time it broke off the clutch handle, which after a few attempts to fix and run up the hill again, ended our day's adventures. As we were packing up, a series 1 Discovery drove past, walked over some deep ditches, and then proceeded to stroll up what
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| Try as I might, I never found a used Discovery that'd fit my budget back when I was younger. (Photo: Trevor Hofmann, Canadian Auto Press) |
appeared to be close to the same vertical ridge a little farther up the road. While he wasn't having anywhere near as fun a time as we enjoyed flipping the bike backwards and skidding down the hill, it became pretty clear to me that a Discovery made a lot more sense for scaling steep terrain than a motorbike.
I set out to purchase one but could never find anything in bad enough shape to fit my budget, even when looking in wrecking yards for one that maybe had a burned out engine that I could replace with a diesel or something to that effect. I found one burned out, or maybe the words burned down would be better to describe it, but it was a little beyond my remedial mechanical capabilities. Alas, a Disco has never become part of my personal collection.
