Land Rover Classic Restores RNLI Defender

One of the most iconic scenes of the British seaside is a lifeboat station staffed by the Royal National Lifeboat Institute (RNLI), with a dark blue Defender parked outside, waiting to deploy the inflatable rescue boat to save a life in peril on the sea. It's a scene repeated all around Britain's coast. But with the Defender out of production since 2016, these vital vehicles are only getting older, and need some refreshing to get more years of service in and around the salty sea. Land Rover Classic Works did just that for one of these icons, refreshing a mid-2000s model for many more years of work.

This particular Defender came to Land Rover Classic Works for a rebuild, using a mix of new and surplus parts to bring the vehicle back to life. First, it was completely disassembled so that the scale of the corrosion could be analyzed and corrected. Fortunately, while a Land Rover is easy to rust, it's also easy to take apart, so the front end was laid out on jigs. Welding work was done where needed, and other corrosion was repaired before the vehicle was put back together and paint was blended.

Once reassembled, the major crisis of Defender longevity is staved off -- the rust is at bay until another day. This particular Defender seems to have come from the RNLI station at Port Talbot, Wales, a busy beach town just south of Swansea.

However, nothing good lasts forever, and it has just been announced that the RNLI will partner with INEOS to supply them with Grenadiers to replace the Defender fleet. They have entered into a five-year strategic partnership, and INEOS is gifting the RNLI 20 vehicles to use as a test of their in-field durability. The Grenadiers will replace the Defenders for lifeboat launching at 15 stations, while five will be put into reserve. Where the Defenders are used for crew transport, they will not be replaced yet.

However, thanks to this recent bout of restoration, at least one RNLI Land Rover will be plying the road and sea for a few more years in resplendent RNLI blue, the end of an era of this great British icon.