Dutch company Heritage Customs has developed a new metal spraying and binding technique that allows it to fit pre-rusted panels to your brand-new Land Rover Defender.

Come on then, who’ll be the first to make the most obvious joke of the day? We can hear the Facebook commenters chuckling to themselves already.

Whisper it, but we don’t actually mind the look that Heritage Customs and sister company Niels van Roij Design have dished out here. Okay, so the 22-inch alloy wheels are a little over the top and the Defender’s interior definitely wasn’t in need of carbonfibre inserts, but the rusted panels combined with a retrimmed brown leather interior look rather cool. *Takes cover*

Apparently, the technique can be deployed with aluminium, brass, bronze, titanium, zinc and even gold. Heritage Customs will then apply a thin layer of any of those metals to literally any interior or exterior surface, as long as you ask nicely. Heck, they’ll even do it to an old Defender too.

That metal can then be brushed, polished, sanded or – as is the case here – oxidised. You can then choose to seal it straight away to protect the look, or you can allow it to corrode naturally and subsequently apply the sealant to stop the process at any point. Very clever.

Real life rust on a Land Rover Defender, who’d have thought it?

STORY Greg Potts