Santana originally started of making exact copies under license but soon made their own changes and didn't incorporate the changes/improvements that Land rover did make over the years. Santana as a company just tanked again recently. They had been partnered up with/owned by Iveco. I don't think many here could give you much information on Santana's state side as there are very few. It looks like a cool truck and for a running, driving, rig thats passed emissions $3500 seems reasonable. Love to see more pictures if you go check it out.
From Wikipedia
From 1968 Santana began to develop its own versions of the Land Rover Series Models, developing new engines and new models and this close relationship with Land Rover led to the company to change its name from "Metalúrgica de Santa Ana, SA" to "Land Rover Santana, SA" [3].
In 1962 the company became responsible for promoting the Santana and Land Rover brands in the Central and South American Markets as well as Africa. CKD kits were also supplied to the Morrocan and Costa Rican markets by the company. Because of the harsh working lives vehicles lead in these environments, customer feedback on the range meant that Santana were often far more aware of each model's failings than the Land Rover company itself was. Because of the tight financial position of British Leyland in this period (who owned Land Rover), Santana were often better placed than Land Rover was to deal with these failings. This meant that Santana began to engineer its own solutions to common problems into the models it produced and so originality between Santana's models and Land Rover's equivalents - a trend which lead to the companies position today. Up to the late 1980s the Santana models - supposed to be quickly and cheaply built versions of Land Rover's own product often ended up being superior to the Land Rover equivalent. For instance Santana models featured anatomical seats, disc-brakes, turbo diesel engines, taper-leaf springs, parabolic springs, and civilian specification Forward Control models before the Land Rover equivalents and even a civilian version of the Land Rover Lightweight called the "Ligero" which was never released by Land Rover[3].
The Santana Motor Company ended its agreement with Land Rover in 1983 but continued to develop its own range of vehicles which remained visually similar to Land Rover's Series and Defender range
