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The Defender that thinks it’s a Corvette
3 days ago
Twisted doesn't cut corners – each car takes up to 1800 hours to build
‘Giving something a load of power is one thing, but it needs to handle right, it needs to be communicative,’ he tells me. ‘I spent a load of time with suspension guru Rhoddy Harvey-Bailey. It was an amazing experience. He almost seemed to drive the car with his eyes shut, just listening to what it was saying to him. He would drive along and say, “we need to take 40 pounds out of the front-right corner…”’
Over the course of 12 months several years back, the pair developed a new suspension setup for Twisted Automotive’s very powerful Defenders. ‘The standard Land Rover setup,’ says Charles, ‘has a really heavy front anti-roll bar and a really light one at the back. We wanted to make the thing more communicative, it needed to ride out the bumps, it needed to be more comfortable and handle properly, but we needed to keep the massive axle articulation for off-road driving.
‘We lightened the front anti-roll bar and firmed up the rear. That got rid of this awful habit of understeer. We softened the first 25mm of movement in the spring, we firmed up the centre of the spring, we went to a gas damper and had that tuned to the rates of the springs and anti-roll bars, and now you’ve got this thing that actually handles.’
"A Twisted build may require 1800 hours across chassis preparation, engine installation, paint, upholstery, final build and so on. It’s painstaking work that can’t be productionised (though some have tried), meaning each car is essentially bespoke, a one-off"
Twisted also fits a whacking great chassis brace to stop the car’s frame from contorting under power and in cornering. The ride suffers because a flexing chassis can actually absorb some of the bumps in the road, but now this car doesn’t paw at the air with a front wheel in bends. A rigid platform also allows the suspension to work as it should.
‘The worst thing that can happen in a Defender is somebody pulls out in front of you, so you have to steer and brake all at the same time,’ says Charles. ‘The moment you let off the throttle the back end wants to come around, the front end wants to push on, and very quickly you end up pointing the wrong way. These things don’t do that.’
A Twisted build may require 1800 hours across chassis preparation, engine installation, paint, upholstery, final build and so on. It’s painstaking work that can’t be productionised (though some have tried), meaning each car is essentially bespoke, a one-off. Some may be adventure trucks with roof tents, or shooting vehicles with drinks cabinets in the boot, or long-wheelbase titans with seating for a football team, or short-wheelbase hot rods like this one. They might be decked out with spotlights and knobbly tyres and roof racks filled with jerrycans, or they might be beautifully restored and classically styled summer drop-tops. It all depends on the customer.
“It wasn’t until I drove the car myself that I really believed what I was being told. I’m not really a Land Rover man – for all their charms, those old things have always seemed crude, rattly and uncomfortable to me – but what I do love is a driving experience that requires real input from the driver. If anything is being lost from today’s cars, it’s that”
Almost a decade after Defender production drew to a close and with countless parts no longer available, Twisted is designing more of its own components than ever.
The engine in this one is the 6162cc naturally aspirated LT1 V8 found in the previous Corvette, all aluminium with pushrods and the same 4.4in bore spacing as the 1950s original. The Chevy small block is as much an icon as the Corvette itself – robust, powerful, relatively inexpensive and dripping with character.
Nevertheless, it wasn’t until I drove the car myself that I really believed what I was being told. I’m not really a Land Rover man – for all their charms, those old things have always seemed crude, rattly and uncomfortable to me – but what I do love is a driving experience that requires real input from the driver. If anything is being lost from today’s cars, it’s that. And in this Corvette-powered Defender high up on Blakey Ridge on the North York Moors, your inputs at the wheel and on the pedals are everything.
It’s all about being deliberate with the car without ever asking too much of it. Choose sport mode for the eight-speed auto, otherwise take off is sluggish and the shifts laboured, then let the big V8 go. No need to modulate the throttle – just flatten it, feel the car rush forward, hear the Detroit supercar soundtrack flood the hillside behind you, and feel the grin spread across your face. It’s the same in corners. The chunky BFGoodrich off-road tyres generate decent grip on the road but they will start squealing and slipping soon enough, and the body will lean a lot if you really attack a bend. But that’s it – there’s no snap oversteer out of nowhere, no terminal understeer that can’t be salvaged, no sense that the car might roll so far it could fall over or that the mass might get the better of it.
This is sports car territory, the kind of twisting, turning, rising, falling road that low-slung performance cars adore. Clearly allowances must be made for this Defender’s weight and height, but I could scarcely believe how well it responded to being driven with the same sort of enthusiasm. It steers with more precision than any old Land Rover I’ve driven and the brakes are powerful too. That big chassis brace and all the detail suspension tuning mean the car isn’t completely overwhelmed by its stonking engine. Far from it.
And away from the moors? Ultimately, this is just a very easy car to drive. The ride is busy but never crashy or too firm, the transmission is smooth and when you’re not making all 460 horses gallop across the landscape, you just ride the kind of torque you only get from eight cylinders displacing more than three quarters of a litre apiece.
I know this machine won’t be to all tastes – perhaps parts of the exterior or interior styling will be too modern for some, or maybe the very concept of such an ancient design allied to so much firepower will seem absurd. And yet, having driven it, it just works, at least as a recreation.
I always apply a simple test to custom builds of any kind. Could the builder have cut corners here and there, saving time and money, without the customer really knowing? The answer is always yes. But did they? Not in this instance and that, I think, is the hallmark of good workmanship.
Photography by George Peck
