SCRAP HEAP to ICONIC replica! Our Tribute to the WORLD’S GREATEST 4WD ADVENTURE

The Olympics of four-wheel driving, and considered the greatest adventure in the world. It was the ultimate test of man and machine. Such an incredible event that reminds me of some of my earliest memories of four-wheel driving, reading about it in old magazines. So I bought a 1997 Disco One for $3,000, and I'm going to transform it into the ultimate Camel Trophy tribute. As a young kid, I remember reading and seeing pictures of the famous Camel Trophy. Ever since then, I've always thought about it as being the peak of adventure, and I've wanted to do a build that pays tribute to that. The Camel Trophy gathered teams from all over the world, who would compete head-to-head in a series of different Land Rovers. Defenders, Classics, and of course, the mighty Disco. It ran until the late 90s, and it was man and machine against a series of grueling endurance tasks. Deep four-wheel drive swallowing rivers, muddy bog holes initiative exercises, you name it, the Camel Trophy had it. My plan for this Disco is to build it up like they did back in the day, and take it up to Coffs Harbour and some New South Wales local tracks. With each trip it goes on, building it closer and closer to the final Camel Trophy tribute truck, where the final chapter will be in Tassie, where we can do our own Camel Trophy, four-wheel drive, 24-7 style. So I thought, perfect opportunity to pay tribute to such an incredible event, that really, to be honest, reminds me of some of my earliest memories of four-wheel driving. That to me, sparked adventure. There are a few key elements of a Camel Trophy Disco. It's got to look the part, with a bit of four-wheel drive 24-7 flair. It needs a few essential mods and upgrades to make it reliable, and then you have to take it to the wildest four-wheel drive places on the planet, and drive them no matter what. That's the plan for 2025 for this rig. Of course, I've brought it down to our good mates at KLR, who helped me get the Parenti ready for our last Cape trip. So it was an easy decision to head back there to get the Disco ready. First off the rank, the tyres. The Camels used to travel with fairly aggressive but narrow tyres. This kept all the vehicles in the comp on a level playing field. They didn't have lockers, and were only really modified with the essentials. But they certainly proved to be capable. And I think with the right tyres, anything's possible. So these are the Wolf wheels that KLR do. These are the exact same ones I ran on the Parenti for Cape York, but we've gone with a different tyre size. So these are the Kumo Road Venture MT51s. I wanted to try something different, and you'll notice with the tyre size I've gone, I wanted to get something in a similar size in the Kumos. I've gone with the 235 85 16, and I reckon they're going to work an absolute treat. Skinny track, but they've got plenty of grip on them. And I reckon with this setup, it looks absolutely schmick. With the general checkover done, James noticed that the rear trailing arms had seen better days. So he got stuck straight into replacing the old factory arms for a set of heavy duty ones. It was time to take the Disco on its first trip to Coffs Harbour, to give it a taste of the type of wet and slippery terrain they took the Camels through. This was the perfect opportunity to find out what I needed to do next with the build, before tackling Tassie later this year. The big Disco is back after an epic Coffs adventure. It was wet, it was wild, and the Disco worked hard. Unfortunately, I did a little bit of panel damage, which hurt my soul because this vehicle was as straight as an arrow. Fortunately though, I do have a plan. I've got some new doors there to replace the ones I dented. And as I mentioned at the start, we are making this more of a Camel Trophy spec vehicle, which means we're going to be Raptor coating it in that iconic Sanglo yellow that really pops these Camel Trophy vehicles off. The Camels would often get panel damage without conquering that tough terrain all over the world. So since Coffs, I decided to get some rock sliders made up. Now you'll notice they kind of look similar to what was on there before with those fiberglass trims that were at the bottom of the doors. That was the design considerations behind this, just to give a bit more protection to the doors. And it's nice and strong. I reckon it looks real nice and minimalist, keeps it neat and tidy, but hopefully should stop me doing that. Moving on to the back. So the rear quarters, we gave it a bit of a camel cut, but to fold this in, we did it with some vice grips in a campsite. So I need to tidy this up. Then I'm just going to try and straighten this out a bit, and we'll be able to body fill up any areas that need it. That's pretty much it. Mainly the quarters and the doors. Let's get on with it. A quick rinse down and we're ready to send her to paint. The tight and overgrown trails that the drivers and teams had to navigate through meant their vehicles would constantly finish these trips with hundreds of pinstripes and scratches along their panels. To help combat this, there was only one thing to throw on. We are now in a spray booth and we're prepping it for a coat of Raptor in that iconic Sanglo Camel Trophy colour. But since you saw it last, we were getting everything off. Now we've gotten the doors off. The new doors are in the next booth. We're sanding all the panels, getting it prepped for the Raptor, but along the way, we're going to show you a few tips and tricks for your own project. And then we're going to get this vehicle in primer. Right now, I've got some sanding to do. Got a couple of boys from the Raptor team here to help so we can get this vehicle done and looking like an iconic Camel Trophy Disco. Let's hook in. Here's the exciting part. We're mixing up that iconic Land Rover Sanglo Yellow for the Camel Trophy Disco. As you can see, we're in a proper mixing booth for this, and I'm leaving it to the professionals. But the good thing about Raptor Tintable, which is what we'll be using on the Disco, is you can mix it with any normal automotive two-pack paint. So to make this Raptor coating look real matte and smooth finish like on Sooty, we're actually going to be spraying it out of a normal spray gun. And to do that, we're going to be using thinners. It'll still be that same tough Raptor that we've used for years, but it'll just give us a much more of a smoother texture and it'll make it look a little bit more like an actual Camel Trophy vehicle, but still have that Raptor toughness and still be easy to touch up. The process is very, very similar. We've still added 10% of the colour to the Raptor Tintable in this mixing bucket, and then we've added 10% thinners as well. So then we'll pour this into a gun and it'll be the same process. The team start with the door jams and tight crevices to make sure every square inch is covered. Then if we miss any spots, it gets covered on the next pass when we go to spray the cab. It also means when you open the door, the colour will match with the rest of the vehicle, making for a much nicer finish. Whilst the boys finish off the body, it was time I took on the task of spraying the wheels with a slightly rougher paint texture to withstand all the tracks I'll be driving through. The process with mixing the paint is the same. I've just dialed in the Vari-Nozzle spray gun to the desired texture I want. Now it wouldn't be a Camel Trophy tribute without the appropriate decals in place. Here she is. I tell you, I am stoked. I reckon this now looks a little bit more camel spec. We've got the big disco back in the workshop and it is time for me to knuckle down and get it back together. I need to refit all the bar work, the rear windows, the roof rack, a whole bunch of interior bits and pieces, plus a couple of little mods along the way to get it ready for its shakedown trip. Roof rack, lights and awning are all bolted on and she's looking absolutely mint. I have to say, I am pretty wrapped with this thing and we're not done with this vehicle just yet. Those of you who know the Camel Trophy a little bit more will recognise there are a few key, mainly cosmetic mods that are still left off. That's because the big Camel Trophy tribute trip is still yet to come. I cannot wait. I'll catch you next time on 4WD 24-7.