Good Morning all... This is harder than I thought!

So... A wee bit about me

My wife and I used to change cars about as often as we changed socks and over last few years we've have had a fair cross section of the motoring genres (2x S-Class, a C-Class, an A-Class, 3 Smart cars, a new Mini, a Polo, a transit, 2 GTis... The list goes on.

3 years ago we moved to a village in Warwickshire and a few things became apparent. Neither of our daily drivers were suitable, nor could cope with:

• Collecting logs in quantity (we don't have central heating, just 2 log burners)
• Flooded roads (this has been a regular winter 'joy' since we moved in.
• Whilst the view where we live is stunning, when it snows you need to walk to see it because your 2wd car will be stuck at the bottom of the hill.
• Buying a shell of a house and rebuilding it creates mountains of rubbish and you will be at the tip every weekend of your life with a car full of rubbish that will destroy your interior.
• Rural train stations are just rebranded breakers yards who's only purpose is to fill your car with more dents than the average taxi in a developing country. 

I thought I found the perfect solution (no laughing please)... I bought a poverty spec TD4 Freelander with 38k on the clock that had been left standing for a few years and have suffered from some graffiti carved into the paint, plus some huge dents and scrapes (in every panel) all for the price of a tank of diesel.

It needed a some work to get it running (new tyres, rebuilt the starter, new battery, clean the EGR valve) but for very little money I thought I was on to a winner. I didn't care about getting it dented, nor the state of the interior and it could haul a few logs with the back seats removed.

However, all was not so rosey. EVERYTHING that can go wrong on a Freelander has gone wrong or is in the process of going wrong as I type this.

I have thought about this long and hard and for a while I considered getting a Defender. They are plentiful and have a huge following, but 5 minutes on an owners forum has brought me to the conclusion that part of the charm of Defender ownership is fixing the thing, unless you buy a Puma engined one, then that charm is replaced with trips to the dealers to get niggles fixed.

I then stumbled across LHD ex military GD240s and GD250s and it got me thinking. Potentially here's a vehicle that could tick all my boxes and I could have a bit of fun with at the same time. I don't have to be precious with it, I used to restore cars as a hobby and still have all my gear (welding, spraying, grit blasting, lifting etc) so buying a 25-30 year old vehicle doesn't scare me (Its a whole lot newer than my 1934 Austin).

So what's the rub? I can't find very much information about the ex-military Gs or where to buy them. My first thought was L Jackson as they have them listed on all of there various websites. A quick email later revealed they don't actually have any in stock, nor do they know when they are getting any more (they have 5 coming in but they are all sold already)

A quick scan of the web and I found a few people sites overseas selling them such as http://www.lys-tout-terrain.com http://www.mercedes-wolf.pl/ but it seems a bit of a crap shoot and I can't find any details of what's involved in buying a military G, where to buy them in the UK, what to look for, how any parts are interchangeable with the civilian version of the same era, nor can I find any websites that detail a ground up rebuild (which is odd because the web has details of people restoring just about everything)

I know they are old, slow, noisy, lacking all creature comforts and a potential can of worms but I am prepared for that. I only do limited mileage (never motorways, I use the other car for that) but as a pure workhorse this looks like it could fit the bill.

So... where do I go from here? Does anyone have any experience of ex-military G's? Where should I look next?

Silas