Defender Works V8 Built in London Department Store

Since announcing the 70th Anniversary commemorative Defender Works V8 earlier this year, the Land Rover Classic Works division has been busy fulfilling the orders for the sold-out limited edition. While most of them are being built in the Classic Works shop, one particular Works V8 Defender 110 was built somewhere very different.

Selfridges is one of London's great department stores, an icon on Oxford Street for almost 110 years. To prepare for their own anniversary celebration in 2019, they ordered the Works V8 Defender with a caveat: it was to be rebuilt in their store, in public view.

Getting the Defender into the store wasn't the easiest thing, and the rolling chassis and crates of parts had to be hoisted 36 feet/11 meters through an upper window. Once it was inside, it took just four days for the Land Rover Classic technicians to completely build up the rolling chassis.

Selfridges did put their own twists on the already-special truck, with 25 special parts above and beyond the tweaks already made for the Works V8 trucks. The truck is painted in Bronze Green, with a soft top dyed in the store's iconic yellow. The truck has several Selfridges badges across it.

It will now make its permanent home in the Designer Street Room of the Oxford Street store, and visitors can sit in it (though I assume they'll have to create their own sounds to replicate the massive 405hp V8). It will play a part in continuing partnerships with Selfridges various art and fashion partners.

Prior to the rebuild, the truck was a 2016 Defender 110 pickup, with the 2.2-liter TDCi diesel engine the final Defenders had. There hasn't been much out there about what the Works V8 trucks were built from, and this suggests that the project was possibly in the pipeline at the end of the original manufacturing run, and the base vehicles were pulled right off the end of the line and stored.

The Selfridges Defender 110 V8 Works will be on display in the store in London for the long haul, so it may be worth it to take a look if you find yourself in the area. Many of the Works V8 trucks went to high-value and collector clients, so it will probably be one of the few the everyday Land Rover enthusiast can experience themselves.