This page is being updated as we travel to each country.
While travelling I kept an eye out for Land Rovers, and was often veering off course to oogle some old Series truck or another.
Taiwan.
We saw no Land Rovers in Taiwan, although we did find one Land Rover dealership with no actual vehicles in sight.
Australia.
Throughout Australia new Range Rovers and Discoveries were common, with a fair number of Defender hi-capacity pickups, 130 crew cabs, and station wagons in fleet use. An engineer for Queensland Rail told me that the railroads are starting to buy Defenders as they are becoming cheaper than Toyotas. A Range Rover owner I met on Fraser Island said that parts and service was fairly easy to come by, but still not as universal as for the Toyotas. I did see a number of Land Rover wreckers with a healthy supply of Series parts.
The greatest concentration of old Land Rovers we saw in Queensland, with the density increasing as we went north. In Rainbow Beach we saw a number of Series trucks, mostly LWB 3-door hardtops, often in camoflage paint. The Land Rovers often had homemade flatbed or stakebed rear bodies. I would say originality was not a priority. Fraser Island 4x4 Safaris, (074) 863 488, 27 Goondi St., Rainbow Beach, Queensland 4581, hires LWB models from $A80-90/day. Station wagons and SWBs were not common. Roof racks and sturdy bull bars with fishing rod carriers were common. The Land Rovers shown below were mostly photographed in Rainbow Beach. I particularly liked the Series III LWB with a Series II/IIA grille, giving four headlights, and the Series III with the boxy rear bodywork.
80% of the 4x4s we saw were Japanese, predominantly Toyota Land Cruisers of various styles, including stakebed trucks and often with snorkels fitted, with some Nissan Patrols and little Suzukis and Daihatsus. There were LWB FJ models and other interesting variants not seen in the U.S. Newer Toyotas with extended roofs are comonly rented as campers. Opinions differed on why Toyota came to take over the market, but the versions I heard were (1) Toyotas were more reliable, (2) Toyotas offered more creature comforts for the money, and (3) Toyotas were cheaper. However, most people agreed that Land Rover is coming back in Australia with the Defenders, Discoveries, and Range Rovers, and Series buffs wll be happy to know that every few minutes you will see some picturesque old Rover or another.
American trucks were not common at all. We did see a few full-size Fords, but gasoline is about $A0.65/liter (about $US2.46/gallon) so the 460 c.i. V8 of my F-250 would seem impractical Down Under.
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