When Twisted founder and CEO Charles Fawcett learned that the beloved Defender would end production in 2016, he took drastic action. Placing an order for no less than 240 fresh-off-the-line Defenders, the man who'd made his name perfecting the loveable Land Rover had just taken a seismic punt on a car that was being put out to pasture. 

"The value of the order was probably twice the turnover of the company that year," says Fawcett with a smile, leaning on the espresso bar he's built in his new headquarters - the Old Cinema - in the market town of Thirsk. "We had to go and borrow the money and find a shed to put them in. I think we peaked at 210 in stock," he remembers. But, now five years on from that moment, it seems it was worth the risk. Despite a Defender successor arriving in 2019, the previous generation bug-eyed brute still has a fiercely loyal following as prices of original Defenders soared over the past few years. "You've got to take a risk and that was a big risk, but because it's Defender, I sleep. If it was something other than Defender, I wouldn't sleep knowing I had all that money tied up in it," admits the Twisted boss. 

While the Land Rover stock purchase might have been Fawcett's greatest risk to date, the story of how Twisted came to be was a little less daunting."My father has been in the motor trade for all my life, so I grew up around vehicles," explains Fawcett. "We lived in a rented farmhouse with access to the farmland, so I would drive every single day up and down the track. I remember whining like crazy to drive anything he bought. I used to drive everything from an old Renault Five Gordini Turbo to Range Rovers, 90's, 110s and series Land Rovers, so I just grew up around cars and I loved them." 

Equipped with a passion for all things automotive, Fawcett started working in his father's garage and helped run their off-road driving centre in the late 1990s. At the same time, he was given the opportunity to become an agent for a company selling Land Rover tuning parts, which Fawcett started trialing on his own machines. "It was clear that we had an edge over a lot of the other vehicles because of power," he remembers. "Back then, the TD5 engine in the Defender was so tuneable - you could get so much power out of it. It was running so lean as standard - they came out of the factory with 122 horsepower and you could easily get 200 horsepower and they made this amazing noise. But people just weren't doing it - they were creating vehicles for off-road; they were all lifting them up, putting great big Simex tires on them and winches and roll cages and making them incredible off-road. But, frankly, bloody awful on the road!" 

Spotting an opportunity, Fawcett figured that as no one was focusing on making the Defender better suited for the everyday driving, he’d do it. "So I was running the off-road centre, doing a bit of competition and driving a Defender every day, so I guess it was natural that we honed the offering and started to put vehicles together, loosely - we'd start to package things up," he explains. 

With a parts catalogue at his disposal and a penchant for tuning, Fawcett started to piece together a project car by the early 2000s - a modified TD5 Defender, which he named 'Project Twisted'. As the interest started to build, Fawcett and his trusty twisted Defender started to receive invitations to show the car at events all around the country. "We got invited to the Peterborough Speedway and got to race our TD5 defender against a V8 Bowler Wildcat. Our car was completely standard on the outside - it looked like nothing - but with 200hp, it absolutely trounced the V8 Bowler," remembers Fawcett fondly. From there, trips to the notorious Nürburgring in Germany and Santa Pod drag strip in the UK followed. "Just seeing defender do what it shouldn't do and putting it in places where it shouldn't be is a statement. And we always try to be the statement," insists the Twisted boss. 

Armed with a garden shed full of car parts, Fawcett started distributing tuning components for Defenders all around the world before a watershed moment arrived in 2008. Splitting from his father's business and setting up alone, Fawcett set up shop in a small industrial unit in Thirsk, North Yorkshire - where the company still proudly calls home. "What you see now is very much 2008 onwards - before then, we were developing exhausts and tuning products for vehicles and mail order. Gradually the mail order fell away and the builds became the daily routine," he explains. From that moment, the company has gone from strength to strength. With the waitlist growing and order books building, it wasn't long before Twisted started developing its own, unique range of special edition vehicles while attracting attention from overseas Defender fans. 

"In the last 18 months alone, we've set up a franchise in the Middle East and one in the US; we've set up a franchise for an electric Defender, we started a Marine engineering business, we've created a new rib, we've bought and redeveloped a new headquarters in the Old Cinema and we've got a new showroom in Kensington, London. So, we're putting new foundations in place but I don't actually think the core business needs to grow - we just need to keep doing what we're doing and keep doing it brilliantly," insists Fawcett.

With plenty of projects to keep him occupied, not least the job of continuing and protecting the Land Rover Defender legacy, Fawcett has come a long way from the early years shifting mail-order car parts from a shed. "It never actually gets any easier, the challenge just gets a bit bigger," he says with a smile, looking around his newly furnished car barn-cum-showroom, complete with pool table and endless car-related curiosities. "I just wanted to create a nice place for vehicles to be - something interesting, something different and not your average car dealership," he explains. "We have to admit that there's very little sense in what we sell - passion is what drives the purchases, so what we really wanted was a space for people to come in and really feel Defender. I didn't want a normal dealership - I wanted somewhere where people can just come and hang out." 

While Fawcett is nothing short of a straight talker, few salesmen would be brave enough to admit their products are pure passion purchases. But that is exactly what Defender is and always was. Even during its production, the car made little sense. It was noisy, not particularly good to drive and cost much more than the dull yet efficient Japanese-made competitors. Yet still, the car sold right the way up to the day the final model rolled off the production line, where its boxy shape continues to be loved and cherished for years to come. "The further we've got away from production, the less sense they make," adds Fawcett. "But there's a market for anything where passion is involved." 

Now the business has proved it's more than capable of producing Defenders that are perfected down to the smallest bolt and seal, Fawcett is already thinking of what's next for the charismatic off-roader. "I've had a concept in my mind for a few years [...] I think to move Defender on to the next level, we actually have to create something that is flawless but still has the look. Imagine a Defender that's warmer, quieter, lighter, faster and doesn't leak - everything works as it should and is ultimately safe. That is the concept and I think it's doable," says Fawcett excitably. 

While the boss is keen to distance his outfit to the likes of Singer, it's hard to shy away from comparisons with the LA-based marque that's taken Porsche restomod culture and dialled it up to 200. Despite its humble beginnings, Twisted has done do the Defender what Singer did to the 911. With the modern Defender now a very different beast from its predecessors, Fawcett has fast become one of the main custodians of the original Defender legacy. While the old car isn't making a comeback anytime soon, the weird and wonderful ideas still spinning around in Fawcett's head will keep the Defender dream alive and well for a while longer yet. 

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