{"id":2068555,"date":"2026-07-30T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-07-29T21:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2068555"},"modified":"2026-07-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2026-07-29T21:00:00","slug":"e-fender-meet-the-425k-landrovers-panterra-an-e-defender-like-no-other","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2068555","title":{"rendered":"E-Fender: meet the \u00a3425k+ Landrovers Panterra, an e-Defender like no other"},"content":{"rendered":"
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On the surface of it, this is yet another restomod; a Land Rover Defender that\u2019s been restored and treated to a shiny new powertrain and luscious leather and aluminium trim by Dutch bespoke builders, The Landrovers. So far, so familiar. But hold those horses…<\/p>\n

Follow the usual path taken by three quarters of The Landrovers\u2019 customers and you\u2019ll get a Defender with a Corvette-sourced V8 engine \u2013 anything from a 450bhp LS3 to a 650bhp LT4 \u2013 hooked up to an automatic gearbox for the sort of boisterous performance and booming soundtrack a slab-sided, definitively not<\/em> aerodynamic Defender shell can only just keep up with.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Made in the Netherlands, prices start at typical restomod money \u2013 the euro equivalent of \u00a3335,000 \u2013 but soon soar as the 28 annual buyers get busy with the near limitless options afforded by high end bespoke. Indeed, such is the individuality on offer, each commission is gifted its own unique name badge and a bold clockface in the dash, which the buyers get to mood board with TLR\u2019s young, effervescent design team.<\/p>\n

But if you\u2019re in the other quarter of buyers, and you\u2019ve got even deeper pockets, you\u2019ve also got the option of The Landrovers Panterra, the fully electric one, as pictured here. Electromods aren\u2019t new and they rarely avoid controversy. Stick some reconditioned Tesla batteries inside an old 911 or E-Type and you can attract the level of online hate usually reserved for politicians.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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This is no mere transplant, though. TLR has spent the past seven years building up to this point, redesigning almost every component beneath that familiar Landie silhouette to properly do justice to the engineering depths it has explored.<\/p>\n

There are new mounting points for fresh, fully independent suspension, necessary to manage the quad in-wheel motors which allow adaptive torque vectoring across the chassis. You\u2019ve a choice of air or coilover springs. There\u2019s a newly electric steering system with a much tighter rack than before. And the small matter of its 600bhp and 4,720lb\u00a0ft claims for a 5.5s sprint to 62mph that feels otherworldly when it\u2019s aboard a 2,900kg chunk.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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It\u2019s hefty all right \u2013 the Panterra is not quite an electric G-Wagen, but it\u2019s nearly there. Blame the 200kWh of battery capacity that the engineers have filled every available nook and cranny with. In fairness, the weight split isn\u2019t far off 50:50, so handling isn\u2019t too unwieldy because of it. But you still won\u2019t want to hustle this like the Ferrari Purosangue it commands similar money to.<\/p>\n

These customers are affluent, after all, and the 375-mile range claim is necessary for them to not feel too embarrassed to discuss the latest addition to their garage. Many of them properly use their cars, too, sending them back to The Landrovers\u2019 Amsterdam base each winter for a bit of love after a tough summer of adventuring. Clearly the Panterra couldn\u2019t be a curious footnote alongside the V8 when it came to roadtripping potential.<\/p>\n

For the outlay, you\u2019ll be relieved to hear it\u2019s a more than capable drive. The air suspension of this example (named \u2018Rica\u2019) makes it a polite and placid thing through town, as does a neater, more accurate steering rack than TLR\u2019s petrol-powered Landies. This is an old school Defender you could happily run errands in without it getting on your nerves, a feeling only enhanced by its powertrain and throttle calibration.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a linearity to the pedal\u2019s operation that makes it a cinch to operate in town, on motorways or anywhere in between. Dare to take one of these off road and its precise power delivery should be rather useful. There are also three brake regen levels and a fair chance you\u2019ll keep their touchscreen menu awake to toggle through them on the fly.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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This is an old school defender you could happily run errands in<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

TLR developed its own software for the central display \u2013 indeed, almost every component outside of its modern Defender gearlever has been designed in-house \u2013 and the systems here are quicker and less frustrating than many of their OEM equivalents. The Panterra is proof that true \u2018bespoke\u2019 goes way beyond some rare leather hides or indulgent paint samples \u2013 specialising the bits you can\u2019t<\/em> see can transform how a car feels.<\/p>\n

And if we\u2019re talking under the skin tweaks, I\u2019d really want to try one on the coilovers to see if they tied the handling down a bit more. The precision of its powertrain occasionally encourages a level of pace that gets its comfort-minded setup into a bit of a fluster, disguising the clever work of the torque vectoring beneath. More focused springs and road-biased tyres might tease some genuine cornering ability out of this car. Even if that\u2019s ultimately not what it\u2019ll ever major at…<\/p>\n

TLR asks another \u20ac100,000 for the pleasure of an electric powertrain, for a starting price of just under half a million euros \u2013 or about \u00a3425,000. It\u2019s a lot, but this is a thriving corner of the market: in its 15 years in business, the company has made over 250 cars and is currently producing 28 a year, each one the beneficiary of 3,000 hours of work.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s appropriately nice inside too, TLR faithfully replacing all the standard plastic trim pieces \u2013 door pulls and the like \u2013 with beautifully milled aluminium. So you get better quality, but also the chance to replace stuff simply from a regular Land Rover parts shelf if you get stuck in a far-flung corner of the world. The leather, carpets and stitching work hard to live up to the price tag and the company\u2019s own seat bases even free up a bit more legroom than before, though your elbows inevitably still feel pinched.<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s what the Panterra showcases that\u2019s really worth noting here. The tech beneath feels too promising to be confined \u2018only\u2019 to restored Defenders. \u201cOur end goal was insane for a company as small as ours,\u201d admits Frank Tijs, who co-owns The Landrovers alongside its founders Peter Zeisser and Daniel van Oort. \u201cWe have some big ideas and a new investor coming in that basically takes our platform into a whole new vehicle programme.\u201d<\/p>\n

In-wheel motors (and the torque vectoring they allow) form only a small part of the EV industry right now, but it\u2019s one full of promise. Where this Dutch company takes the technology next is something we\u2019re excited to see. Not just another restomod after all.<\/p>\n

The Landrovers Panterra<\/h4>\n

Price<\/strong>: \u00a3425,000 (approx)
Powertrain<\/strong>: 4x in-wheel motors, 600bhp, 4,720lb ft, AWD
Battery\/range<\/strong>: 200kWh\/375 miles
Performance<\/strong>: 0\u201362mph in 5.5 seconds, n\/a mph
Weight<\/strong>: 2,900kg<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On the surface of it, this is yet another restomod; a Land Rover Defender that\u2019s been restored and treated to a shiny new powertrain and luscious leather and aluminium trim by Dutch bespoke builders, The Landrovers. So far, so familiar. But hold those horses… Follow the usual path taken by three quarters of The Landrovers\u2019 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[226,237],"class_list":["post-2068555","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-crawlmanager","tag-topgear-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2068555","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2068555"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2068555\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2068555"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2068555"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2068555"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}