Could you be one of the lucky 25??




Just a few months after the last new Defender rolled off the production line in Solihull, England, the familiar boxy shape is back as Land Rover's Classic division has declared 25 examples will be restored into as-new condition and sold to customers under the new Reborn program.

The 25 vehicles have been cherry-picked from amongst restoration candidates to ensure they are as authentic as possible, and they will be stripped down to bare metal for a nut-and-bolt rebuild at a special workshop at the Solihull plant. The lucky buyers get to choose from five period-correct colors and two wheelbases, and there is a chance to follow the restoration work being performed on each vintage 4x4.

Land Rover has already sold an unrestored and scruffy example that had been displayed at the Techno Classica show in Essen, Germany. Prices for completed cars are said to range from £60,000 to £80,000 ($85,000-$110,000) so a factory-backed and warrantied "Reborn" Land Rover will not come cheap – but it will be perfect. The thorough work has been estimated to take from six to nine months. After the initial 25-car batch has been completed, the restoration service will be made available for customer vehicles in sore need of sprucing up.

Land Rover's Reborn program announcement comes hot in the heels of Jaguar's XKSS Continuation series. Jaguar will assemble nine XKSS sports cars, which remained unproduced after a fire broke out at the Browns Lane factory in February 1957.

Original article: Land Rover Series 1 Reborn with factory restoration effort