A week ago, we came across a Carscoops article about Land Serwis, a Polish company that recently built a new Defender Crew Cab Pickup and is “building [classic] Defender models from scratch.”
This is a big deal. And anyone even remotely aware of the demise of the original, iconic Land Rover Defender in 2016 and the new 2020 replacement knows this is a big deal.
After hyperventilating into a paper bag, we continued reading and found that “from scratch” qualifier seems to be legitimate. The company is actually building original chassis, and as Carscoops cites from the company’s page, Land Serwis is “one of only four builders in the world and the only one outside the U.K.” doing this.
Let me be frank, I didn’t personally know there were companies out there building brand new chassis for discontinued Defenders. But that blind spot made me think, hey, that probably means there are a lot of people out there who don’t know about this either. While Land Serwis’s announcement made the rounds on car blogs, I couldn’t find one that reported the other three companies, so I did some digging.
Before we get to that, you might be thinking, haven’t you written about brand new Defenders before? Not exactly. We’ve written about companies that take the chassis out of decrepit Defenders, rehab them, then build anew, such as Florida’s E.C.D. Automotive Design or England-based, U.S.-export-friendly Arkonik. They deal in “restomods,” others deal in pure restorations. But starting from zero is, obviously, much more complicated.
Now, we’ll add the caveat that the four companies below are the only places building new chassis that we know of. If you’re a Land Rover 4 Lyfer who knows about another one, go ahead and reach out. We’d be honored to add it to the list below.
Land Serwis
- Location: Wieliczka, Poland
- Starting price: 11,323 złoty (or roughly $2,952)
- Learn more: https://lr.pl/
Shielder Chassis
- Location: Armagh, Northern Ireland
- Starting price: £1,700 (or roughly $2,216)
- Learn more: https://www.shielderchassis.com/
Richards Chassis
- Location: Swinton, England
- Starting price: £1,440 (or roughly $1,877)
- Learn more: https://www.richardschassis.co.uk/
Marsland Chassis via KDLandRovers
- Location: Stockport, England
- Starting price: £2,400 (plus VAT in Europe)
- Learn more: https://kd-lr.com/marsland-chassis/
Now you know. How you actually acquire said chassis, build the rest of the car around it, get it to comply with U.S. regulations and then ship it across the pond is, unfortunately, up to you.
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