Land Rover Classic, the in-house restoration arm of JLR, has taken its Defender Works V8 model to the next stage. After several special edition models with somewhat standardized configurations, the Works V8 program now turns towards totally customized vehicles, bringing the classic Defender the closest it has been to its days in the regular marketplace, which ended in 2015.
The Classic Defender V8 by Works Bespoke continues the mechanical platform that debuted on the first Works V8, which was a company 70th anniversary project in 2018. The platform continued through two Trophy editions and the Islay Edition in the years since then.
The base is a 2012-2016 Defender, the final iteration of the classic model. Though never available in the United States or Canada (and these reimagined vehicles remain unavailable in North America as they do not hit the American 25-year or Canadian 15-year age requirement), this was the final form of classical Defender, equipped with a 2.2-liter diesel engine developed by Ford.
Land Rover Classic yanked that engine out and replaced it with a variant of the venerable 5.0-liter AJ-V8, cranking out 405 horsepower. This is a naturally aspirated version of the engine, instead of the supercharged version, to allow it to fit in the smaller Defender engine bay. The engine is paired with the eight-speed ZF automatic transmission, the same as in its applications in Range Rover and LR4 models. The rest of the vehicle is also fully disassembled and built back up to exact specifications, as should be expected for a restoration by the automaker itself.
The exterior is available in a wide range of colors, spanning both the classical and modern eras of Land Rover paint. The Heritage palette includes colors like Marine Blue, Balmoral Green, Tamar Blue, Keswick Green, and Aintree Green – all stalwarts of the early 2000s Land Rover brochure. The Contemporary Palette includes hues shared with current Land Rover models, from Santorini Black to Giola Green. The Premium Palette is the mix of colors that usually result in upcharges on modern models, including Carpathian Grey and Silicon Silver. The SV Metallic Palette pulls colors from the Range Rover SV program, with extremely high-end finishes. Finally, there’s the option of a Works Bespoke Palette, which brings your wildest imagination to the paint booth. Roofs come in body color, limestone, or black; wheels are either a Wolf steel wheel or a Sawtooth alloy.
The interior is based on the original "Puma" interior, but it’s uprated with leather covering many surfaces. The leather options reflect the current Land Rover hide colors, like Caraway, Liberty Blue, and Garnet. Again, with money, all things are possible with custom interior trim colors. The original manual transmission shifter is replaced with a pistol shifter, essentially the same part as the shifter on the new Defender. An optional Premium Seating package includes Recaro front seats.
The Defender V8 by Works Bespoke is the most available Defender Works V8 yet. You can configure it on an online configurator, and anyone serious about buying one can work with a member of the Land Rover Classic team to configure a vehicle. Starting prices start at £190,000 + VAT for a four-seat Defender 90 station wagon, and go to £204,000 + VAT for a seven-seat Defender 110 station wagon. Of course, you can’t have one in North America yet, but we can continue to dream. If you are in the UK during the Goodwood Revival from 6-8 September, the new models will be on display at the Land Rover Classic stand.
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