Prices expected to take off
A one-of-a-kind Land Rover Defender inspired by the twin-rotor Chinook helicopter will go under the hammer at the Bonham’s Goodwood Revival auction with a hefty estimate of between £120,000 and £180,000.
The Q40 Defender 110 XS built by British firm, Tecniq, is being auctioned at the sale on September 17 in aid of the Royal Air Forces Association, a charity that provides welfare support to the families of RAF members. The Defender has been built with design cues throughout inspired another one of the armed forces’ stalwarts.
Externally, the Tecniq Defender is only subtly different to factory-finished Land Rovers with hand-finished camouflage bodywork in matte and gloss dark green, carbon-fibre accents — including the grille — and a subtle representation of the Chinook helicopter at the rear inspired by the badges on air crews’ flying suits.
Inside, it’s quite a bit more luxurious than a run-of-the-mill old Defender with four lightweight carbon-fibre racing seats (no bench seats here) clad in grey Bridge of Weir leather with sheepskin inserts — again, inspired by the Chinook.
While the interior retains the compromised ergonomics of a Defender, certain other elements have been modernised with a new instrument cluster and centre console, including a navigation/ multimedia screen.
The boot of the Tecniq Defender is portioned off using the same webbing as is found in a Chinook, too.
Far away from the rattly old oil-burners of old, powering the Tecniq Defender is a 2.3-litre Ford EcoBoost engine derived from a Ford Mustang and producing 307bhp and 219lb ft of torque.
That is sent to the four wheels via a six-speed automatic gearbox, and the ride and handling have seen an improvement as well, with programmable dampers, new anti-roll bars and lowered coil springs.
The brakes are also uprated, with six-piston calipers up front, four-pots at the rear and bigger discs all round.
The British Army began using the Defender’s ancestor, the Series 1 Land Rover, in the late 1940s while the Chinook went into service with the RAF in 1980. As such, both are long-standing mainstays of the British defence forces, making the Tecniq Defender an apt crossover (in the classic sense of the word).
Developed from the Boeing CH-47 Chinook that first flew in 1961, the Chinook is valued thanks to its heavy-lift capacity, an attribute that comes about mainly due to its dual rotors.
With 60 currently in service, the UK has the largest fleet of Chinooks outside the United States, and the helicopter has seen use in several theatres of operation including Afghanistan, Kosovo, Northern Ireland and the Falkland Islands. It is expected to remain in service until the 2040s.
In addition to the vehicle itself, the winning bidder for the Tecniq Defender at the Bonham’s auction will be given an exclusive behind-the-scenes tour of RAF Odiham in Hampshire, where the Chinook is based.
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Keyword: Chinook-inspired Land Rover Defender could fetch £180,000 at Goodwood Revival auction