New Land Rover Defender for Selfridges is now on Designer Street

A new Land Rover Defender V8 Works has been hand-built by JLR Classics in Selfridges London store and is now on permanent display.

A few weeks ago we revealed that a new Land Rover Defender was on the way, this one hand-built by Land Rover. But it wasn’t the all-new Land Rover Defender we’re still waiting for, but a special Defender V8 Works just for Selfridges store in London.

Selfridges wanted a Defender for their new Menswear Department – Designer Street Room – but there was no sensible way to get a full-sized Defender in to the store. So Land Rover took apart a V8 Works and craned the bits in to the store.

What started off as a 2016 Defender 110 2.2 TDCi Pick Up had already been turned in to a Defender V8 Works before it was hoisted in to Selfridges, when a Land Rover Classics team of five spent 930 hours putting the car jigsaw back together again.

As you’d expect for a Defender which will sit proudly in Selfridges – and be seen by around two million visitors a year – there are some unique details, with Bronze Green paint job, a branded hood for the pick-up bit in Selfridges Yellow, retro seats with custom stitching and, obvs, Selfridges logos.

Arriving in Land Rover’s 70th year – and a year before Selfridges 110th anniversary – the new Defender is a permanent feature of the new Menswear area and designed, no doubt, to make visitors feel manly and butch as they browse for clobber.