A NEWTOWN company has created the world’s first zero emissions Land Rover Defender – and it’s on display inside Selfridges in London.

The car, which Mochdre-based Classic Electric Cars spent nine months converting from the traditional diesel model into a modern electric vehicle, is centre stage in the luxury department store’s Project Earth demonstration – a programme to show the company’s commitment to change its business model to draw in its ethically minded consumers.

The project was considered to be extra eco-friendly because as well as being electric, nothing was manufactured to convert it into an electric car, with parts harvested from other vehicles.

Richard Morgan, the owner of Classic Electric Cars, said: “We’ve turned one of the most polluting vehicles on the planet to one of the most carbon neutral vehicles on the planet.

“It was taking a Tesla that was crashed, a vehicle that didn’t have a future and was written off, and giving it a second life as part of this project.

Getting the Defender into the Oxford Street store was a late night job, with the shop only closing its doors to the public at 9pm.

In order to get it into the building, a crane had to be used to take the front two doors off – a process that took several hours.

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However, the Defender isn’t just there for display. It was important for Richard and his team to make sure it had the same spec as it did with its old diesel engine – and they outdid themselves.

“Not only is it the greenest Defender on the planet, but it’s the quickest on the planet,” he added.

“It can go from 0mph to 6mph in four seconds.”

Classic Electric Cars’ business is turning old petrol and diesel cars green – whether it be a Beatle or VW Campervan, or a modern classic like the Land Rover Defender, of which Richard now has a couple more going through the conversion process.

Most cars on the road are around five years old, Richard says, and therefore not electric – which is where the opportunity is to convert them.

He also thinks that the big car manufactures have missed a trick when it comes to electric cars in rural areas, and that new models are generally designed to be used in the towns and cities.

A gap in the market, he says, is to make farm vehicles electric – and allow them to be charged using solar panels already attached to many farms’ roofs.

Richard believes that soon, the public will be fully adjusted to electric cars – similar to how they learned to accept the end of propeller planes and stream trains.

“There’s always a transition, from changing one system to a newer, better one,” he added. “People will say in 10 years time ‘why on earth didn’t we use electric cars sooner? They’re so much better’.”