CUSTOMIZING CLASSIC LAND ROVERS WITH TLC
It's not a shop. You might think that a place that, in essence, buys broken-down classics, fixes them, and sells them would be a “shop,” but that term would make for a gross understatement, here. ECD Automotive Design began as East Coast Defenders about 10 years ago. And back then it was a shop. It imported Land Rover Defenders from Europe, fixed what was wrong with them, and sold them to happy customers.
Today, ECD has around 100 fulltime employees, a 100,000-sq-ft facility, and is publicly traded, after launching a successful IPO in December 2023. It completed 78 cars in 2023, and is on track to complete 93 for 2024. (For reference, Pagani manages about 40 cars annually.) At any given time, it has around 20 cars in progress on one of its three “assembly lines.” Like I said, it's not just a “shop.”
ECD'S core product is still the Land Rover Defender. It's what it started working with back in 2013, and it's the firm's most-sold model. It also works with the early Land Rover, known as a “Series” Land Rover; the very first Range Rover generations, called the Range Rover Classic; and it's now branching out to E-types, as well. No matter which vehicle you order from ECD, a few things remain constant.
Firstly and most importantly, all ECD vehicles are completely bespoke. And the level of customization is beyond most, even in this rarefied air of built-to-suit classic vehicles. I was able to spec out my dream Defender on ECD'S configurator, just like a client would, and I can report the process is extremely in-depth, with a skilled digital artist turning your requests into a digital rendering in real-time, displayed on a huge TV in front of you.
There are over two million combinations of features at your fingertips, and that's before you even account for paint options. You can make your Defender look modern and aggressive; classic and relaxed; or anything in-between. For example, the interior could be leather, vegan leather, or cloth, but also each individual panel could be in a contrasting shade of leather or even brushed aluminum. The stitching can be any colour you like, and — well, it goes on and on. The customization process is largely the same whether you are specking a Series Land Rover, a Defender, or an E-type.
One of the things that stood out to me about ECD was the wide range of available engines in its vehicles. For the Land Rovers, the base engine is a 6.2L General Motors LS V-8, but you can step that up to a more powerful LT1 V-8, or even the world-ending 650-hp supercharged LT4 V- 8 from the C7 Chevrolet Corvette Z06. For those looking to live life at a slower pace, you can spec a Cummins 2.8L turbodiesel, in stick shift or automatic.
For the E-types, the GM LT1 V-8 comes standard, though you could also spec an original Jaguar V-12, bored to 6.1L and fitted with a gorgeous electronic fuel-injection system breathing through six billet velocity stacks. That would be my personal preference.
But what I found truly interesting about ECD is that it offers fully electric drivetrains in any of its vehicles. The system is built from used Tesla parts, and was co-developed with Ampere. A 320-hp electric motor gets installed in both the Land Rovers and the Jags. It's forward-mounted where the engine would go, so the power still runs through a driveshaft to the original-ish differentials of the vehicle; ECD claims this makes the cars feel more natural than a Tesla-style rear subframe-mounted motor.
The Land Rovers use a 84-kwh battery pack good for 320 km (200 miles) of range; and the E-type uses a smaller 42-kwh battery pack (for weight and packaging reasons) to provide a 240-km (150mile) range. All ECD EVS are capable of fast-charging, and starting in 2024, they will all leave with a Tesla-style NACS charging port, allowing drivers to top up at Tesla Superchargers.
At this point, you're probably wondering how much this all costs, and how long this all takes. The answers, respectively, are: a lot; and not as long as you might think. Prices for most ECD models start around US$300,000, though special options could easily take that number past US$350K. The EV drivetrain, for example, is a US$40,000 option. Completion of a project vehicle takes 12 to 14 months, which I think is very impressive, considering the amount of work put into each vehicle.
I found ECD to be very innovative in the classic-car restomod space. The vehicles it produces are, of course, high-quality, exhaustively developed, and constantly improved as better processes are discovered. ECD uses a system it calls “Mortgaged Responsibility,” where the cells of the operation, like disassembly, paint, interior, wiring, and final assembly, are all managed like independent shops by those in charge of each cell.
For example, ECD allows those working in the disassembly cell to sell off the original and unneeded Land Rover parts (like the original diesel drivetrains) and keep 50 per cent of the profit to themselves. It represents a sizable monthly pay bump to those workers.
Each cell has a whiteboard on which they can write a complaint in terms of production quality and efficiency. Writing something on that board guarantees the CEO will personally address the issue within the week. ECD'S employees are passionate and skilled in their trades, and operate with a higher degree of autonomy than I have witnessed in other shops. Like I said at the beginning — it's not just a shop.