A Land Rover Defender pick-up truck with a 419bhp V8! What’s not to love?
Modification specialists Urban Automotive and Heritage Customs have created two visions of a new-age Defender pick-up
The new Land Rover Defender is available in many forms, from a commercial van to the ferocious 626bhp OCTA. However, there’s never been a pick-up version, until now.
The first-ever new-age Defender pick-up is not an official JLR creation. It comes from the minds at Heritage Customs, who used the extra-large Defender 130 with a 419bhp 5.0-litre supercharged V8 engine as the base.
A chunk of the standard car’s roof has been removed to create the truck bed, and a roll hoop has been added, presumably for both added protection and style. There’s a proper bed liner too, and a roof rack for carrying even more stuff, including the spare wheel that would usually be found on the Defender’s tailgate.
Heritage refers to its Defender pick-up as a “semi-coachbuilt project”. We assume that’s because the truck looks mostly the same as the 4x4 it's based on. However, buyers can choose a bespoke paint colour and wheel designs, custom upholstery, and a variety of accessories designed by the company.
But what’s better than one Defender pick-up? Two of them! As the name suggests, the Heritage Edition model you see here was designed by Heritage Customs, and offers a “refined, elegant, and authentically classic” look.
Meanwhile, the Urban Edition was created by Urban Automotive, which gives the pick-up truck a more modern, more authoritative look courtesy of a murdered-out (all black) colour scheme, extra cladding around the wheelarches, and four lightbars at the top of the windscreen.
Heritage Customs revealed its Defender pick-up at its base in The Netherlands, and you can now buy a build slot for one. Customers can expect to pay around £60,000 to convert a Defender into a truck like you see here, and the process will take two to three months.
A production version of the Urban Edition of the Defender pick-up will be revealed at the next Goodwood Festival of Speed in July 2026.
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