News : Range Rover reborn – yours for £135k

Rising Range Rover values have no doubt spurred on Jaguar Land Rover’s decision to sell ‘as new’ examples as part of its ‘Reborn’ initiative. You’ll see the first result of this at the Salon Rétromobile 2017, where the company’s overhauled 1978 classic will be on display.

Range Rover Reborn is a new programme offering prospective customers the unique opportunity to purchase an original Range Rover, direct from Land Rover Classic in the UK. The launch of Range Rover Reborn builds on the successful introduction of Land Rover Series I Reborn last year.

Reborn in Solihull

Every Range Rover Reborn will undergo a complete restoration according to the company’s original 1970s factory specification. They will all use Land Rover Classic Parts to preserve and protect the vehicle’s authenticity.

Land Rover Classic’s expert team has drawn on decades of engineering and design expertise to complete the first Range Rover Reborn and will advise customers of the best options for base vehicles – in terms of collectability, preferred chassis numbers and unique characteristics. Prices for completed Range Rover Reborn restorations from Land Rover Classic will start from £135,000 GBP.

Also at Retromobile

Another highlight for show visitors will be the European debut presentation of the ‘New Original’ Jaguar XKSS. Following its successful introduction to media at the Petersen Museum in Los Angeles in November 2016, this stunning XKSS finished in Sherwood Green is the engineering blueprint for nine cars destined for delivery to customers worldwide in 2017.

Keith Adams

36 Comments

  1. Nahh, that’ll never catch on – all this retro stuff. The 75 killed Rover ‘cos it was too ‘retro’ according to some.

    • Come on – rather different re-building vehicles that are already classics to trying to make a modern junior exec look like a 1950s Auntie Rover – Very different products, very different markets and very different buyers. Anyway, if retro didn’t kill the 75, what did?

  2. I think this is a cracking idea. The biggest problems I can see from my point of view are deciding over Bahama Gold or Lincoln Green. Fabric or Ambla seats? Do I go for headrests?

    Another thing, just a minor detail really. I need my numbers to come up on EuroMillions. Once that formality is out of the way, I’ll be down to Lode Lane faster than you can say Spen King Gas Turbine car!

    (I hope they won’t be built exactly to 1970s specification. A bit of rust proofing would be nice.)

  3. Starts FROM £135k! Shame they seem to be spending so much time reintroducing classic Landie parts but can’t do a Defender replacement in a reasonable time period. Also it’s a pity they didn’t “restore” the offside rear numberplate light. FWIW there’s quite a following for classic rangies in Iran, of all places. What’s next – refurbished 101’s or 2A F/C’s?
    Like the use of the Velar name in the new model.

    • To be fair introducing classic spares is a lot different from developing a new car.

      I’ll believe the new Defender when I see it. I predict it will be on the lines of a sport recreation vehicle. Bold colours, lots of toys with a rubberised but cool interior.

      I think if JLR were really serious of creating a commercial vehicle it would have created something to rival the now common crew cab type pick ups which are a favourite with farmers and tradesmen. Base it on a D4 platform perhaps?

  4. Would love to see how they reproduce the original “Palamino” plastic seats that cracked so bad and I wonder if there is a “Non PAS” “Non Heated Rear Window” , “Non Radio” option like the original 1970/71 cars, I am sure that would trim a few quid of the price if you want a proper retro Range Rover!
    And are they supplying the starter handle? that could be used to turn that V8 over [through the small hole centre of front bumper] if the battery was flat..i know I did it back in the mid 70s and it worked!

    • The amount of classics I see on eBay which are over £60K is astonishing – especially with P38s selling as low as £1K and rarely over £5K.

      • I keep looking at the P38 as a family-friendly modern classic, but I know it would cost a fortune to keep it in good nick. I’d probably be better off buying a Classic RR…

  5. Sensible move from JLR. Other specialists like Kingsley Cars and Bishops Heritage have been offering “better than new” restoration services on classic Rangies for a while now. They’re a bit cheaper than the official LR Reborn cars, but they’re still £50-90k.

    There’s a significant niche of moneyed country folk who don’t like the brashness of the new Range Rovers and are willing to pay top dollar for a restored RR Classic.

    I’d save a few quid and settle for a restored early 1990s Soft Dash RR Classic for £20k.

    http://www.kingsleycars.co.uk/for-sale/restored-land-rovers/1994-range-rover-classic-300tdi-soft-dash-fully-restored.htm

  6. Will the “restored as new” Range Rovers have all the typical design and construction faults * for which Range Rovers owners attribute as “character”?

    * Water leaks, panel gaps , wavy body panels etc etc

  7. For that sort of money they could put them back in to production – provided they can meet modern regulations.

    • I’m a Land Rover & Range Rover enthusiast and I’m struggling to think of a single regulation it would be capable of meeting!! 😉

  8. If you want truly authentic, they should quote a delivery date then get the restorers to go on strike for several weeks.

    When I finally take delivery, I’d expect shoddy build quality and perhaps even a different colour to what I’d specified.

    Finally, I’d expect the dealer to ignore my complaints leading me eventually to give up and trade it in 6 months later for something Japanese

    • Would you, when it arrived, be prepared to drive a 3.5 litre V8 without power steering, plastic seats, a four speed gearbox and fuel economy of 17 mpg? Also notice the space where the radio should be( maybe get yourself some old Radiomobile MW/LW jobbie to listen to the handful of stations that still use MW and LW) and perhaps get an aftermarket demister for the back window. Welcome to motoring in 1970 at a price of £ 135,000 that back then could have bought you a Rolls Royce Silver Shadow, a very nice house in Surrey, and probably enough to retire on.
      OTOH in 1970, driving your V8 Range Rover, with its torquey and refined engine and your afterfit radio to keep you entertained on long journeys, would have been quite pleasurable on the quiet new motorways and also parking it would have been easy and mostly free. Not to mention all that space to carry the dogs, tow the horsebox and carry the family around.

  9. I assume you mean the P5 cars? I agree – very nice. I once had the chance of buying a P5 / 3 litre in 1975. I was only 20+ and could have afforded it – but not the insurance or running costs.

  10. Now I’ll make a serious point about the 75 (how did we get onto this on a Land Rover page – oops, my fault). In my view the insumountable problem for Rover at that time was image. Many organisations from sports foot-ware companies to resturaunts find themselves ‘out of fashion’ – just not the ‘in thing’. There may be good reasons – in some cases there is no significant reason – the public just don’t think your ‘in’ this month/year. Talk to marketing bosses about this. If you compound this situation with any real (as well as perceived) negatives, then further fuel is added – and the task of reversal is made more difficult. Many of you were around at the time – you must remember the attitude of the ‘general public’ to the Rover brand. There was no confidence, there was no belief, there was no conviction from any of us that the company had a future. Car magazines praised the 75 but took the mick out of the company something wrotten! It was all about ‘eye candy’ on the drive and an Audi, BMW or Mercedes would earn more ‘browny points’ with the neighbours than a Rover! People don’t like to hear this but many of us buy what impresses others! Nothing has changed much – I have a work colleague who owns the latest A4 and the latest Golf – they both reflect his typical ‘young executive’ slightly superior style, always in the fast lane but never wants to put a head above the parapet and be counted. Loves being with the in-crowd. This man has never liked the 75 and detests it to this day. What I’m trying rather clumsily to illustrate is that your blaming the manufacturer, the model, the sales people, the stylists – blaming anyone except the real culprit – us, the buying public. And we didn’t buy it because we had no affinity – no emotion with it. Not because it was a badly styled car but because we simply ‘fell out of love’ with the brand. This won’t be a popular view but I have worked with organisations that have suffered at the fickle hand of fashion. Its tuff – it can be insumountable. Skoda proved it wasn’t.

    • There is a greek word that sums up very well what you are trying to describe: Ιδεοληψία: All the dictionaries that i have looked up are translating this as obsession, but this term is not accurate enough. It literaly means when someone adopts someone else’s ideas without any critical thought, and believes firmly in them. This is what happens in our age that there are the means for very fast diffusion of information. We are bombed with so much stuff that we don’t bother to cross check if someone has a hidden purpose when he expresses an opinion about something, or if this serves our interests or the interestes of the general public. We just adopt opinions instictevely, or we are just listening to the loudest voice.
      Sorry for the off-topic, but i just could not resist. I will post something more relevant further down!

    • Skoda still has the badge snobbery attitude from fellow motorists! I drive a Superb estate whilst my colleagues drive E-classes. The Merc is a “nicer” motor in many ways but £10K nicer?! I don’t think so. The Superb is a belter, too easy to hit the “ton” (where permitted – lol), but I still have that feeling of inferiority compared to my peers.

      Witness JLR, I would love a Jaguar or RR Sport – not the most reliable products on the market but brand credibility by the bucket-load, from almost nothing to 500K+ production in less than 25 years is remarkable yet is the XF or XE the better real world car than the Skoda (apart from RWD)?

      As an aside.. take a look, one day, at the centre console of a Bentley and that of other VAG products…. looks vaguely familiar?

  11. The P5 etc may be products of the same original company and factory, but do Land Rover see themselves as custodians of classic Rover cars? Apart from anything else, there’s no link between a P5 and a current LR product

    • I do not expect JLRover to remake a P5. When I was on holiday in Boston in the United States I saw lots of Rovers, Land and Range Rovers. If one puts one’s hand over the word Range or Land one sees Rover. There is the link as I see it. JLRover is using heritage as a differentiator and use of the Rover P5 would fit. M.

      • I agree, I hoped that JLR would use Rover as the “obligatory” brand-name in their Chinese joint venture (Apparently foreign companies are obliged to create a new “brand” when JVs are set up).

        It might be an opportunity to go back to the “heydays” of the 50’s & 60’s and use the Rover brand as an experimental brand with gas-turbines, skunk-works projects et al. alternatively, take Rover back to being the poor man’s Rolls, occupying the space once owned by Daimler thus avoiding any branding confusion with the Germans, if the Rover brand has too many “negative” connotations why not Lanchester? Obviously British and grand sounding (has that Downtown Abbey/Dorchester hotel “feel” about it). Don’t know whether Alvis is owned by JLR but I feel it still has some viability in my eyes. Correct me if I am wrong but the Chinese love “ye olde english” vibe and, as possibly the largest car market in the world, might well buy into this vision. (I’ve a feeling that the Americans still have a love of all things oldy-worldy too!)

  12. Pick me off the floor, someone, as I have just fainted, banged my head and can now see an invoice in front of my eyes for £135,000 to restore an early Range Rover. Ooh, my head and the reflection of that brass plate is glaring into my pupils. Stop it.

    Surely there are other as equally skilled restoration companies out there who can deliver the same standard of workmanship, but for a price where it will still leave enough left over for the owner to buy a new Discovery 4, top-of-the-range Discovery Sport, etc.? This is a very high price to pay for having one’s Range Rover restored by a restoration company that has recently been set up by the manufacturer. Is the kudos really worth that much?

  13. The price may seem over the top, but reading through the lines, the purpose of JLR was not really to start a restoration business. Through this operation, as they are doing with the series 1 Land Rover and with the Jaguar models are looking to capitalise on the sucessful history of the past and support the image and value of the current range of models above the competition. This is not addressed to mere mortals for sure, but those that have the capacity to get one will be proud to do so.

  14. It’s an interesting subject for debate – which old cars are worthy of being re-made and sold as zero mileage new cars?

    There’s the MG LE50 (£58k)
    http://www.frontlinedevelopments.com/vehicle/mg-le50/

    the Eagle E-type (£200+k)
    http://www.eaglegb.com/36/eagle-etypes

    the Series 70 Land Cruiser (only £21k, but not available in the UK)
    http://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/new-cars/toyota-re-releases-iconic-land-cruiser-70-series-japan

    and Nissan did a factory-supported restoration program for the 240Z in the US in 1998
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nissan_S30#Relaunch_attempts

    All of these are iconic cars with a major enthusiast following, as is the Range Rover. Obviously JLR’s marketing bods have come to the conclusion that there are enough RR fans with deep pockets to justify building these classic Rangies in small numbers.

    Bearing in mind the love for 1900s cars on Keith’s “what was the best era for cars” article, what would be the best candidates for digging out from the back catalogue and selling as new cars once again?

    Peugeot 205?
    Mk2 Golf?

    In a world where mint used 205 GTIs sell for £30k (http://www.pistonheads.com/news/general-pistonheads/the-30k-205-gti/34702) there has to be a business case for Peugeot to dig out the tooling for the 205 GTI and sell “new” 205s in limited number. It can’t be any worse than the rubbish they’re currently peddling!

  15. I had to make sure that it wasn’t 1st April……

    All very good if you have £135k knocking about spare but that price puts it in with new Bentleys.

    I am selling rose tinted glasses for £1,000 per pair.

  16. While CSKs are selling at around £50k and early RRs are selling for nearly double that, there will obviously be a small but steady market for genuine, factory restored ones and at £135k it’s not too steep compared to E-Types and Astons. If I had the money, I’d sooner have a classic Rangie than a cramped sixties sports car.

  17. Just spent 2 hours pouring over the restored JLR Range Rover. Simply superb quality. I could not fault it and seemingly 15 people who attended Retromobile 2017 this weekend felt the same because they placed 35% deposits down. Seems like huge money but workmanship superb and dare I say it seems a bargain compared to JLRS other remade car on the same stand, the Jaguar XKSS.

  18. Are these originals being modified to make driving more bearable for modern conditions, such as PAS, a rear demister and a five speed transmission( or automatic)? I think now anyone driving such a big car without PAS and only four speeds would find it a chore.

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