Matt Builds A Tomcat

I own a 1990 Range Rover classic known as Jeremy. Here it is:

Jeremy the Range Rover

As you can see, Jeremy isn’t your typical school-run 4×4, it’s just a big toy. It’s a 3.9 Vogue EFI with Recip Trial tyres, a 2″ lift, rear ARB locker and a Warn winch, among other things.

Off-road, Jeremy is pretty good (although he developed an allergy to water on the Billing off-road course this year), but the approach and departure angles and the overall weight cause a lot of problems. I’ve thought about bobtailing, but that wouldn’t really help with the weight issue, and is quite a job if you want to do it well.

Then I saw a Dakar kit at Billing, which is a fiberglass body and a roll cage sat on a (pretty much) unmodified Range Rover chassis. That got me hunting around on the web for bodykits, and although the Tomcat kit means I will lose the rear seats (Hell, I’ll lose the interior), I’ve decided that’s the one I want. There’s nothing really wrong with the Dakar kit, but I couldn’t make up my mind about the looks, and it’s a little more expensive, too.

During my search, I found very little useful information about building a Tomcat, which is the reason I decided to set up this site, and I’ll try and keep a detailed record of everything involved.

Here is a picture of a Tomcat – I don’t think I want the roof on the back, though.

Image from TomcatMotorsport.co.uk