Old Defender, the immortal: an English entrepreneur has 200 never used. And he sells them for a lot of money

The long wave of the most iconic English off-roader does not stop. After the Ineos Grenadier project that has never hidden its desire to collect the legacy of the Land Rover Defender and after the birth of many workshops that transform and modernize the old Defenders in circulation, here comes what should be the last new batch of the most beloved English off-roader. Like a good reserve wine, after having made sure that no new ones exist for sale in any dealership in the world, the English entrepreneur Charles Fawcett who with his Twisted Automotive, founded in 2000, transforms and customizes Defenders, has announced that he has set aside an entire batch of the model that stopped production in January 2016.

These are 200 vehicles, all Defender 110s in the most luxurious XS version, purchased en masse in 2015 directly from the factory a few months before they went out of production, when the official price was just over £35,000 each (the equivalent of 42 thousand euros), excluding discounts. Fawcett then registered them all in 2016 and stored them in a shed at his company, until now.

In the meantime, Twisted, which launched its first TD5 90 vehicle in 2003 and the Twisted 110 the following year, has built a large showroom a few steps from the workshops, in Yorkshire, a second in London and has looked to the US and Japanese markets. Having created the network, Fawcett came out in the open, announcing to The Sun newspaper that he had “gone to the Defender production line in Solihull to meet the men and women who build the vehicles” and circulating photos of his loot stored in a large shed.

He explained that these vehicles are for sale but only after a “one of one” customization that will make them all unique, that no two will be the same and that he has already sold sixteen. All at a price that starts from 135,000 pounds (162 thousand euros) for the diesel versions and 184,000 pounds (221 thousand euros) for the most powerful petrol models, excluding taxes.

A real bargain for those who bet on the durability of the model and had the patience to wait ten years after the end of production to take them out.