Chieftain Extreme is the classic Range Rover of your dreams
Want a Classic Rangie that's reliable and very, very fast? The Chieftain Extreme might be the car for you.
The vehicle that arguably kicked off the luxury SUV craze of recent decades, the classic Range Rover, has developed somewhat of a cult following thanks to its comfort, off-road capability, and quintessential British design.
Its desirability has risen in modern-classic circles to the point where good examples are fetching as much as $50,000 – with many Australian-delivered vehicles now being sent back to the UK, due to a lack of rust-inducing salted roads here.
British company JIA has been developing 'restomod' Range Rovers in recent years – bringing original Rangies back to showroom-looking condition, but with modern brakes, suspension, and a proven V8 borrowed from General Motors.
This week, JIA previewed a new concept: the Chieftain Extreme, which gives a more modern look to the original two-door Range Rover.
Powered by a 523kW 6.2-litre supercharged 'LS3' V8, the Chieftain sends power to all four wheels through an eight-speed automatic transmission.
As the Extreme shown in these renders has yet to be built, no acceleration times have been provided. But considering its more demure 320kW non-supercharged sibling gets to 100km/h from a standstill in a claimed 5.2 seconds, it's a safe bet this one will do it in the fours – depending on how much grip is available from those all-terrain tyres.
Like all Chieftains from JIA, the Extreme sits on a re-worked chassis, featuring fully-independent suspension and AP Racing brakes, but this model also gets boxed guards and a wider track.
The price for a basic Chieftain starts at $265,000, and while pricing for the Extreme hasn't been made public, expect a healthy premium over that figure.
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