The Instagram-fueled boom in replica vintage car body shells

Not surprising That in an electric world where Jell-O-mold cars are designed to create minimal drag, many car heads yearn for the automotive aesthetics of yesteryear. After all, classic cars from the 1970s and earlier had undeniable style — the problem is, car companies don’t make them anymore.

This is a sales boon for restoration shops, but despite barn finds, the supply of vintage vehicles is inevitably limited. But this rarity has created an opportunity for an Indonesian company, which, in a legal gray area, is hand-crafting beautiful replicas of the 1950s Mercedes 300SL Gullwing and other legendary sports cars.

And not just Indonesia. Chinese factories are producing 3D-scanned body shells for icons such as the Ford Bronco from the 1960s and 1970s, and the latest Land Rover Defenders from the 1980s and 1990s.

Equipped with the latest technology, today’s cars are safer and easier to drive than older cars, and thanks to AI-powered software suites and smartphone connections, they’re more personalized, too. However, they can be boring to drive, and as if they were designed in a wind tunnel by committee, they often lack individuality. The Squint and Nissan Rogue look like the Kia Sorento; The same applies to the Porsche Cayenne and its Volkswagen Group mate, the Audi Q5.

Attractive old cars may squeak, but those that have achieved classic status ooze character. (For collectors, the words “vintage” and “classic” refer to cars from specific eras, but in this article the terms are used in their general sense.) Hagerty estimates that there are 45 million cars of this type in the United States, worth a trillion dollars.

They are sold to wealthy collectors (almost all of whom are men), and there are car workshops in the United States and Europe that make “replicas” that mimic the classic outlines of the past. Some are outfitting these new vintage cars with non-retro trims such as sleek side exhaust pipes, rearview cameras, and features that are now common or mandatory on modern cars, such as power windows and beefed-up tires.

A fully painted replica of classic Land Rover bodies produced at the Junqing plant in Jiangsu Province, China.

Courtesy of Juncheng

Bodyshell Boom

One of the most frequently copied vintage cars – and usually built under license – is the Shelby Cobra, a sports car developed by American car designer and race car driver Carroll Shelby, and manufactured in the early 1960s by the British company AC Cars. Many replica cobra shells handcrafted in the United States were originally handcrafted with a graceful aluminum body, and are now made from fiberglass molds.

If history is preferred, there are also workshops that restore and modify original vintage cars, upgrading these “mods” with stronger brakes, high-performance engines, and full-blast air conditioning units. Land Rover in the U.K. sells “redesigned” pre-2016 Defenders for $305,000, while a Helderburg company in Arkansas takes 25-year-old Defender bodies and rebuilds them with internal machines, hand-shaped components, a custom cockpit, and adding Focal audio systems, Apple CarPlay, and a Tesla-style multi-camera cloud-based security system.

While the Helderburg Lazare, available for $376,000, has a reworked turbo-diesel engine, some Restomod stores have customers who want to switch to electric vehicles. British specialist Electrogenic has converted Jason Momoa’s 1929 Rolls-Royce Phantom II into a comfortable electric car. Kindred Motorworks, which operates out of a former naval shipyard on San Francisco’s Mare Island, integrates electric motors and special batteries into vintage Ford Broncos, which, once completed, retail for more than $200,000.