Interior view showing LUCARI Tan leather bucket seats with diamond-stitch quilting and perforated detailing.
Case Studies

Defender 110 Station Wagon Full Interior Build

23 June 2026
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What a Full Defender 110 Interior Build Actually Looks Like

Most customers who come to us with a big interior project have already done their research. They've browsed forums, saved Instagram posts, spoken to a few people. They arrive with a rough idea of what they want and a slightly vague idea of what it involves.

What they're often not prepared for is the scope. Not because we expand projects unnecessarily, but because a classic Defender 110 cabin has a lot of surfaces. Dashboard, door cards, seats, headlining, grab handles, cubby, visors. Each one is visible. Each one affects the whole. If you commit to a full retrim and stop halfway, the vehicle looks unfinished in a way that's actually more distracting than if you'd left the original interior completely alone.

This 110 Station Wagon had a full interior rebuild. Front to back, surface to surface. Here's how it came together.

  • Interior view of a restored Land Rover Defender 110, featuring LUCARI Tan leather interior on the seats and door cards, a wooden steering wheel, and a custom auto cubby box. Sunshine through window highlights colour and texture throughout the cabin.

The Brief | Tan, Clean and Cohesive

The customer wanted a complete cabin transformation in LUCARI Tan leather. Not a partial upgrade, not new seats with old door cards to follow later. The whole thing, at once, in a single hide colour that would tie every surface together.

In our experience, that's the right way to approach a build like this. Tan leather is as warm and classic look on a Defender, and it has the practical advantage of showing craftsmanship clearly. On a neutral colour like tan, stitching detail, panel alignment and leather quality are all immediately visible. There's nowhere to hide poor work, which suits us fine.

The starting point was a solid vehicle. A TDCI 110 in reasonable mechanical health, with an interior that was functional but well below the standard the rest of the build deserved.

  • Rear interior of a Land Rover Defender 110 showing LUCARI Tan hex-quilted leather seats with integrated headrests, three-point seatbelts, and a consistent leather finish across all visible surfaces, photographed in natural light.

The Interior | Every Surface Covered

The seat build came first. We fitted a full five-seat tan leather interior covering both the front row and the middle row, with all seats trimmed in matching hide. Seat heater wiring was fitted and connected throughout, and refurbished runners were installed on the fronts. The tip-up bases on the front seats were converted as part of the same process.

One thing that surprises customers when they see a finished build is how much the door cards contribute. It's easy to focus on seats because they're the most tactile element, but the door cards are the largest panels the occupants see. On this 110, all four door cards were retrimmed in matching tan leather, including the rears, which sometimes get left out when customers are budgeting. We advised against it here. The continuity matters.

Ahead of its arrival with us, the owner had already had this Defender swapped to an automatic engine. For its auto cubby box, we completed a custom retrim in quilted Tan leather to match the rest of its interior. 

The dashboard was then next, and this is the element that most builders either avoid or get wrong. A TDCI dashboard retrim involves working across a complex, curved surface with numerous transitions, vents, and switch panels to work around. Done well, it reads as factory-correct while being unmistakably better than factory. Done badly, it looks as though someone had a go with leftover hide.

A MOMO Indy Heritage 14-inch wooden steering wheel was fitted to finish the driving environment. Interestingly, the choice of wheel matters more than most customers anticipate when they first start planning. The MOMO Indy Heritage has the right proportion for a classic Defender cabin, and the wood rim works with tan leather in a way that a leather wheel at the same spec would not. It grounds the interior in the right period without feeling like a costume.

  • Rear side doors of a green Land Rover Defender 110 open wide, revealing a full LUCARI Tan leather interior with diamond-stitched bucket seats, matching door cards, and chequer plate floor detailing. Blue sky and open landscape visible in the background.

Electrical & Practical Upgrades

Alongside the interior work, the 110 gained front and middle-row electric windows. This is a practical upgrade that often gets bundled into larger builds and works well when the interior is being stripped back anyway. A front door lock repair and aftermarket central locking were also fitted during the same visit.

These aren't glamorous additions, but they're the kind of thing that affects daily use. A Defender with properly functioning electric windows and central locking is a different ownership experience from one without.

  • Close-up of the centre console area inside a Land Rover Defender 110, showing tan quilted leather seats and a matching auto cubby box.

Exterior Hardware

A full set of OPTIMILL black aluminium exterior hardware was fitted, covering the security door and rear hinges, wing mirror arms, vent set and dummy hinge blocks. The wing mirrors were finished in gloss black to match.

We've found that exterior hardware choices affect how an interior reads. A Defender with tan leather and exterior accessories in contrasting black has a coherence to it that makes the whole vehicle feel resolved rather than assembled. This 110 is a good example of that.

  • Interior view showing LUCARI Tan leather bucket seats with diamond-stitch quilting and perforated detailing.

Mechanical Work

A snorkel was removed, the headlight bowl replaced with a levelling unit, and the windscreen washer pump was repaired. These are the kinds of mechanical jobs that reveal themselves during a thorough build strip-down. The vehicle was returned with everything working as it should.

The Result

This is one of the most complete cabin builds we've done. Every surface the occupants see or touch is trimmed in matching tan leather, the electrical systems work properly, and the exterior hardware gives the vehicle a coherence it didn't have before. You can shop all the individual parts from this build here.

The customer drove away in a 110 that looks like a significantly better vehicle than the one they arrived in, because it is. Watch the final video of this vehicle here.

  • Side on view of Land Rover Defender 110 on an industrial park with a sunny blue sky in the background.

 

If you're planning a full Defender interior build or want to discuss a seat retrim for your 110 or 90, get in touch with the team. We work on vehicles at our fitting centre in Rye, East Sussex and we're happy to talk through scope and budget before you commit to anything. Contact us here.