1990 Land Rover Defender 110 ARKONIK
An Arkonik-Built Defender 110 Hiding a Corvette LS3 Heart
Used · $130,542
Includes $599 dealer doc fee
Plus tax, title, registration & transport
- Mileage: 7,532 miles
- Exterior: Green
- Interior: Brown Leather
- Transmission: 6 Speed Automatic
- Drivetrain: 4WD
- Engine: 6.2L LS3 V8
- Body: SUV
- VIN: SALLDHAF8HA476365
- Stock: 476365
This 1990 Land Rover Defender 110 left the factory as a utilitarian British workhorse and came back from Arkonik's workshop as something else entirely. Under the hood sits a Chevrolet Corvette LS3 V8, its valve covers lettered plainly for anyone who opens the bonnet, paired with a 6-speed automatic transmission and 4WD. The result is a classic Defender silhouette with modern American muscle underneath.
Finished in dark green over a brown leather interior, this particular truck shows just 7,532 miles. The five-door station wagon body rides on black multi-spoke alloy wheels wrapped in all-terrain rubber, and it is dressed for real use: a full-length expedition roof rack, a brush bar with its own light bar and driving lights, diamond-plate protection on the bonnet and sills, and rock sliders along the rockers.
A Corvette Heart Under British Sheet Metal
Pop the diamond-plated bonnet and the valve covers announce themselves right away: lettered "CORVETTE LS3" in red, flanking an aftermarket cold-air intake that feeds a conical filter mounted ahead of the firewall. This 6.2-liter LS3 V8 is rated at 430 horsepower at the crank, routed through a 6-speed automatic transmission to 4WD. A Wilwood-branded reservoir cap sits at the corner of the bay, a small signal of the braking hardware that backs up the power. It is the kind of swap that turns a Defender from a slow, honest utility vehicle into something that can actually keep pace with modern traffic, and the Corvette lettering stays right there for anyone who looks.
Dark Green Over Black, Built to Work
A standard 1990 Defender 110 left Solihull with painted steel wheels, a plain steel bumper, and no lighting beyond its round headlamps, built for farm tracks and army depots rather than pace. This truck carries an LED light bar integrated into the front brush bar and a second LED bar built into the leading edge of the full-length expedition roof rack, giving it auxiliary lighting a factory truck never had. Black multi-spoke alloy wheels with Land Rover center caps replace the original steel wheels, mounted with all-terrain tires sized for real ground clearance rather than pavement. Diamond-plate panels protect the bonnet and sills from the kind of wear a stock painted bonnet cannot take, and black rock sliders run the full length of the rockers to take hits that would otherwise land on the sheet metal.
The braking system carries Wilwood-branded hardware, a step up from the Defender's original setup and matched to the power the LS3 swap puts down. A ladder mounted to the rear tailgate and an externally carried spare keep the truck equipped for use away from pavement, not just posed on it. Together, the lighting, the wheel and tire package, the armor, and the upgraded brakes turn a utilitarian farm truck into a 110 built to be driven hard and recovered easily, backed by the 430-horsepower LS3 covered elsewhere in this listing.
Brown Trim and a Wood-Rimmed Wheel
Inside, the front seats carry a contrasting dark brown bolster set against a lighter brown center section, paired with a wood-rimmed steering wheel that plays against the black dash and door cards. The dashboard carries an Alpine touchscreen head unit, backed by an included Alpine iLX-700 reference guide, and a bank of auxiliary rocker switches on the dash handles the hazards and heated seats. It is a cabin that keeps the Defender's upright, utilitarian architecture while updating the parts a driver actually touches every day.
What Arkonik Builds, and Why This One Matters
Arkonik takes a Defender down to its steel frame before any of this happens. The chassis goes on a jig, gets re-aligned to factory specification, and every body panel is prepped and painted separately so the reassembled truck closes up with factory-correct gaps, a level of fit a standard 110 never left Solihull with. Each finished build runs through a 300-mile test program split across multiple sessions before it ships, specifically to catch anything that needs adjusting while it is still on Arkonik's property and not the owner's. Production is capped at five vehicles a month, and a current commission takes roughly 24 months from donor truck to completion.
That process is why the LS3 swap under this bonnet reads as integrated rather than bolted in. Arkonik has paired the 6.2-liter Corvette LS3 with a 6-speed automatic on its own flagship SVO build, the same combination fitted here, and built that pairing around a chassis and cooling and mounting package engineered for it rather than adapted after the fact. A standard 1990 110 came with a 200Tdi diesel making roughly 107 horsepower. This one makes 430 at the crank, with none of the fabrication compromises a one-off home-built swap typically carries.
Included
- Haynes workshop manual (Land Rover 90, 110 & Defender, 1983-2007)
- Alpine iLX-700 reference guide
- Arkonik-branded key fob with keys
Automotive Addiction · 158 E 4500 S, Murray, UT 84107 · (385) 437-1523 · By Appointment Only · Utah Dealer #419C
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