Inside the workshop where vintage Land Rovers are reborn, one obsessive detail at a time

CNN — Lisbon, Portugal (CNN) — There is a commanding photograph of an oversized golden screw hanging on the wall in Ricardo Pessoa's office. It is strangely beautiful and perfectly in keeping with the atmosphere he has created in the warehouse of Coolnvintage (CNV), the unique business he runs in Lisbon, Portugal.

The company's website provides little detail of what it offers, and certainly no information about how much it costs to undertake one of its projects. But that is part of the point. Pessoa takes on 12 clients a year, 14 at most. The waiting list is up to three years long and not just anyone can join.

The clue, however, is in the bio of CNV's Instagram page: "Painstakingly restoring Land Rovers with an obsession for detail and a commitment to the essentials." Here, in a former Xerox facility in an eastern suburb of the city, Pessoa and his team bring road-weary Land Rovers back to life and elevate them to works of art.

The cavernous workshop is a far cry from your local garage. Pessoa's Bernese mountain dog Alfie surveys the scene from the mezzanine, where his owner is currently working on a soon-to-publish book of adventure photography. Music, kept at a low level, is interrupted only by the sound of power tools as members of Pessoa's 17-strong team devote fanatical attention to the task in hand.

The space is filled with Land Rovers in various states – some disassembled, some overhauled and some which Pessoa has not yet worked out what to do with.

Each renovation begins by completely disassembling the car and 3D scanning all the parts which are then restored, replaced or stored for future builds in the meticulously catalogued warehouse.

"A car takes 1,200 different parts, not counting bolts, screws, washers and all these consumables, so in total maybe 3,000," said Pessoa. "We check every part three times."

Meticulous mechanics

Established in 2012, CNV was initially more a labor of love than a livelihood. "I traveled a lot with Land Rovers when I was younger," Pessoa said. "I bought one, started doing some trips in Portugal and then gathered the courage to go to Morocco, Guinea, Angola… I've done most of Africa although unfortunately never in one trip."

He would fix up the vehicle before each adventure. "People loved the cars so I would sell them when I got back, before going on to do the next one and the next one."

He later employed professionals for the restorations but remained "very hands-on," operating out of smaller premises while keeping his day job running a media business. Eventually Pessoa decided to focus solely on CNV and moved to this warehouse in 2022.

Today CNV has almost 400,000 followers on Instagram and demand for their cars far outstrips supply. The firm has only ever restored 200 Land Rovers, with each project requiring an average of 2,000 hours skilled labor.

"I don't want to scale the business by any means," said Pessoa. "I don't want to just do the product and say, 'give me the money for the car' and that's it, so I get to choose people I feel we're in sync with."

That can –– and has –– meant turning away business from "people who aren't looking for what we can offer," he admitted. "I steer them to different companies who I think could do a better job."

Scouring the globe

Launched in Britain in the 1940s, the 4x4's mission was, as the name suggests, to "rove the land, regardless of conditions."

"They were made for agriculture and military purposes and to work on farms and many did," said Pessoa. As such, the vehicles were never designed with comfort and mod cons in mind.

"As we go to more autonomous driving and AI, a lot of people are trying to hold on to this," he said. "Everything is very mechanical. It gives you more of a sense of being alive. Special technology removes all this from your life –– you take everything for granted."

Driving these Land Rovers "really slows you down," he added. "You want to make a call? Forget about it, too noisy. You don't even hear the phone ringing."

Almost two thirds of customers commission renovations of vehicles they already own, including those looking to revitalize Land Rovers which might have spent years neglected within their families. Others entrust Pessoa to source the Land Rover. "Sometimes it takes three months and sometimes it takes two years," he said.

"We have a huge network and people know us from socials. If we do a story saying we're looking for such a car we get flooded with messages."

Portugal is a "very Land Rover heavy country," but Pessoa travels to every corner of the globe in search of the perfect vehicle, which includes researching its history and provenance. "We bring them from everywhere, even New Zealand," he said. "It's very typical that I land somewhere, rent a car, have an address, put it in the GPS. The last ten miles might be on a dirt track, with the Land Rover in a shed somewhere.

"It's really cool going to new places which you would never go to in your life and then to meet these people who say, 'it was in a really great condition when I parked it here 35 years ago.'" If the vehicle fits the bill, Pessoa informs the client who makes the purchase and arranges shipment to Lisbon.

Needless to say, CNV restorations do not come cheap, with projects starting at 200,000 euros ($224,000) –– excluding the cost of the vehicle and "logistics."

'The timeline is a kind of goal'

Pessoa's current favorite is a "patina project" –– meaning the original paintwork remains, complete with faded scratches –– for a UK client who already owns five others. Pessoa himself owns "around ten," yet he flinches at the suggestion that either of them is a collector.

"The difference between a collector and someone who has a few but doesn't collect is usage," he explained. "A collector would have all the cars together because they want to see them and they're collecting because of specs or year or color. I don't want people to have it so they can tell people they have it."

His customers are "not afraid of abusing" the vehicles, he said. "Our Land Rovers are meant to be driven not collected. For me, that's the most important part of the company's DNA."

His clients are predominantly male, though a growing number of women now buy from him too. They are mostly CEOs, former CEOs or founders of big companies. "I'm getting them at the best stage of their lives," said Pessoa, 47. "They're at the point which I'm now getting to, where you realize your own mortality and think 'I need to start enjoying myself.'"

Pessoa meets every prospective client before signing a contract, which usually means welcoming them to Lisbon for a "very special and organized visit." He explained: "I have an old Rolls Royce from 1971, a Silver Shadow. We pick them up from the airport in it and take care of them."

They maintain a close relationship throughout the process, with Pessoa keeping clients abreast of significant developments. He has been known to send clients artistic photos of small components (hence the golden screw shot), and once made a record of an engine for its music-loving owner.

Given the price tag, one might expect clients to call the shots. Not so fast. "I'm the author," said Pessoa. "I know very well what they like and what I think they should have so we kind of negotiate, but it's not something they come here to choose," he said of details such as paintwork.

The same goes for any kind of ETA. "The timeline is a kind of goal," he said. "It will be ready when I think it's done."

Once complete, Pessoa either personally delivers the Land Rover or arranges the handover at one of two luxury retreats in Portugal and Morocco. "If it's a car I bought for you and you don't forge some sort of relationship with it, it's just a car," he said.

"They need to get this connection so I leave them alone for two or three days so they can do the first drives with their family. They have the kids in the back, they go for a picnic, they go horse riding. They'll always remember this."

This is how client Nuno Ventura took ownership of one of his two restored Land Rovers. "That made receiving the car something very special. The setting, the attention, the personal involvement –– it all became part of the memory of the car."

Patiently awaiting completion of his third vehicle, Ventura said the aspect of the restoration he is most impressed with is "how much of himself Ricardo puts into every project."

"When you spend between 200,000 and 300,000 euros and wait a year-and-a-half to two years, you have very high expectations," he added. "The quality of the restoration is essential, but so is the relationship throughout that time."