I’d been following Coolnvintage on Instagram thinking it was just some random account posting nice-aesthetic-stuff, but no, it’s a real vintage 4x4 restoration outfit in Portugal and it’s actually doing some of the most beautiful work in old-truck-decoration right now.
Scroll through that little slideshow and you’ll see what I mean: this long two-door Defender has clean lines and leather accessories, and what appears to be a Marshall audio system which is pretty neat. But for the love of all that’s metal, that painted frame is inspired. I especially like how starkly it contrasts with the particularly humorless shade of grey that was chosen for the bodywork. (It me, art critic.)
The design on the frame was done by Lisbon artist Vasco Costa, and the build is simply named “N77.”
Wow. I... this might be my new favorite Land Rover build.
You can see a big batch of photos on Coolnvintage’s site, and if you want them to make you one like this, you can find the company’s contact info there too but the way the it describes itself is: “a multidisciplinary team that painstakingly restores only a few Land Rovers per year with an obsession for detail and a commitment to the essentials.” So what I’m saying is: it’s not going to be cheap.
Now, this is not the first time fine art has been applied to an old off-roader. A Land Rover Series III famously painted by Keith Haring sat in the Petersen Museum for some time, and have I ever mentioned that Jules Muck put a parrot on the hood of my Scout? Probably. I love bragging about that.
But I also love seeing an old truck like this get a cool twist on the idea of the resto-mod. Old SUVs with new engines, re-trimmed interiors and shiney bodywork are being made by a whole lot of shops now that such vehicles are extremely popular with the newly wealthy and blue bloods alike. So it’s cool to find someone doing something that, as far as I know, hasn’t really been seen.