Land Rover Is Restoring First Gen Range Rovers

If you’re a fan of old school Range Rovers, there’s great news: Land Rover is officially getting into the business of restoring first-generation models. Of course, getting one is really going to cost you, because Jaguar Land Rover needs a lot of cash to fight those Germans.

Some people firmly believe the first-gen Range Rovers are the most off-roaders ever. You can debate the merits of the truck, but there’s no doubt it’s at least up there. And if you really want one, but don’t want to slave over restoring one, getting your hands grimy and cutting up your knuckles over the space of a couple years or so, while searching tirelessly for replacement parts, you can just have Land Rover do all the work and have all the fun.

The first example of these factory-restored Range Rovers will be shown off at Salon Retromobile 2017. It’s a classic vehicle exhibition in Paris, the city who’s mayor wants to ban old cars. Go figure. Land Rover is calling this new venture Range Rover Reborn.

As you can see in the picture, the first model is a Bahama Gold 1978 Range Rover Classic, with three doors and plenty of panache. Under the hood is a 3.5-liter V-8, plus a Zenith Stromberg 175CD carburetor. That combination is good for 132 horsepower and 186 lb.-ft. of torque. Not quite a monster by today’s standards, but the thing is weighed down by airbags, infotainment crap and such.

If you have lots of cash, you can custom-order a Range Rover. So far, the program is only confirmed for Great Britain.