Land Rover has revealed a new-old soft-top V8 Defender: yours for… £234,000

This is a new soft-top Defender brought to you from the good folk over at Land Rover Classic. Which means it’s a new-old soft-top Defender, brimmed with a big, mighty V8 petrol engine and a big, mighty price.

Because this new car that looks like a very cool old one will start from two hundred and thirty-four thousand of your very finest, very stiffest-upper-lip English pounds.

For that, you get the greatest hits of Defender, starting with that delectable bodyshape. It’s a two-door convertible – what LR Classic calls “legendary” – spun off the short wheelbase ‘90’ chassis.

LR Classic sources a donor vehicle from the 2012-2016 run of classic Defenders and then lavishes each individual one with warm words of encouragement and a hearty pat on the back.

Kidding. Each one will be “comprehensively enhanced and re-engineered” so that it’s as factory fresh as possible. There’s a bespoke canvas hood with tie downs and webbing, on a frame inspired by the original North American spec 90 version. This is the level of geekery Land Rover’s operating at.

You too can geek out via a raft of customisation possibilities, from a wide choice of colours and materials and lettering and wheels, and extending to stuff like wine coolers, surf board racks and so on. Essentially, if you want it, LR Classic will make it so.

What’s non-negotiable is the standard-fit 5.0-litre V8, here producing 399bhp and 380lb ft, matched to an eight-speed ZF auto and a spot of four-wheel-drive. LR Classic’s had a thorough go at the suspension too, fitting new coil springs with “revised rates” (read: quite springy), Eibach anti-roll bars, and Bilstein dampers.

The brakes have been swapped out for four-pot Alcon units, slotted over 335mm front discs and 300mm rears. LR Classic says this allows for “confidence-inspiring stopping power”. Understatement, that.

“At Land Rover Classic we work with clients to provide a one-to-one bespoke service, so they can enjoy their vehicle safe in the knowledge it has been designed and engineered exclusively for them, by the original manufacturer – the people who know it best,” said Dominic Elms, LR Classic boss. Expertise that carries a big, mighty price.