This 1959 Land Rover Pickup Once Belonged to Daniel Craig and Rachel Weisz, and Their Goodbye Note Gets the Model Name WrongA 1959 Land Rover 109 Series II pickup that spent time in the garages of Daniel Craig and Rachel Weisz is sitting at a $15,000 bid on Bring a Trailer, with the auction closing Thursday, August 27. The truck comes from a consignor in Newbury Park, California, wears a fresh coat of Bronze Green paint, and carries a Montana title. But the detail that will actually get people clicking is the handwritten note and signed portrait from Craig riding along with the sale.The note, signed by Daniel and Rachel Craig, says the couple sold the truck "with great sadness" and asks the next owner to take care of it. Genuinely sweet, undercut slightly by one detail: the note refers to the truck as a Land Rover Defender. That's a forgivable slip for anyone who isn't a Land Rover nerd, but it's wrong. The Defender name didn't exist until 1990, when Land Rover needed a way to separate its original 4x4 from the newly launched Discovery. This truck is three decades too old to carry that name by any official measure. It's a Series II, built during the years Land Rover simply called its trucks Land Rover.The 109 in the name refers to the wheelbase, not a trim level: 109 inches, making this the long-wheelbase version of the Series II, versus the shorter 88-inch trucks most people picture when someone says old Land Rover. The Series II arrived in 1958 as the model's first real styling overhaul, with rounded, barrel-sided bodywork designed to hide the ladder chassis and soften the original's strictly agricultural look. It also introduced the 2.25-liter petrol four that would stay in Land Rover and Range Rover production, in various forms, for more than two decades. Here it's factory-rated at a modest 77 horsepower and 124 lb-ft of torque, routed through a four-speed manual, a dual-range transfer case, and a floor-shifted RoverDrive overdrive unit that effectively adds a taller gear for calmer highway cruising, a genuinely useful addition on a truck this low-geared.AdvertisementAdvertisementThe consignor's listing notes a recent Carter carburetor and electronic ignition swap, along with a new generator and fresh engine seals; the original Solex carburetor and ignition components are included with the sale for anyone chasing originality later. The leaf springs were recently rebuilt, and the 16-inch three-piece steel wheels wear 235/85 Cooper Discoverer STT tires. Inside, the three-across bench has been reupholstered in tan vinyl and fitted with outboard three-point seatbelts, a sensible modern addition, since three-point belts weren't even patented until 1959 and had no business appearing in a factory Land Rover of this vintage. The five-digit odometer shows 3,800 miles, but the seller says it isn't accurate and the truck's total mileage is unknown, which matters more than the number itself on a 66-year-old truck.None of that should scare off a serious bidder. As-is sales are the norm on Bring a Trailer, not the exception, and plenty of good trucks change hands with incomplete histories, the same way a $458,000 Ferrari 512TR recently sold straight out of a storage unit after 14 years off the road. The bigger thing to budget for here is a pre-purchase inspection focused on the chassis and bulkhead, since Series IIs are prone to rot in exactly the spots a fresh repaint can hide. The Montana title is worth a second look, too. It's a common, legal way for dealers to register collector vehicles without paying sales tax up front, but it means the truck has likely never been registered or smogged in the state where it's actually sitting, so buyers should check their own state's title and emissions rules before assuming a smooth handoff.Classic trucks have been one of the more stubbornly hot corners of the collector market this year, part of a broader run that included a record-setting Monterey Car Week just last month, and celebrity ownership tends to add a premium that has nothing to do with what's actually under the hood. We saw a version of that heat with a 550-horsepower Ford F-150 restomod that turned heads at Barrett-Jackson this summer, on a truck with zero Hollywood connections. Whether a similar premium shows up here is anyone's guess. The 971 watchers and 41 comments say plenty of people are curious, but curiosity and bidding are two different sports. If you'd rather see what Land Rover is doing with its current lineup than its history, we covered the brand's display at The Quail, which paired a Dakar-spec race truck with a rare '90s Defender. This 1959 pickup, meanwhile, has a couple of days left on the clock, a name in its farewell note that isn't quite right, and a story better than most of what actually crosses an auction stage.