About Ben Beckendorf

Founder, Burro 4x4

My love for Series Land Rovers started when I was 14. My family and I had just moved to a new town, and my younger brother befriended a neighborhood kid whose father was (and is) a Land Rover nut. He had a painfully gorgeous 1967 Series IIa named Maggie. She was a pastel green with a soft top ()usually had the sides rolled up since we're talking about Florida), and was a regular at the Rover rallies they coordinated every few months.

I had always been interested in mechanical things, taking apart whatever I could get my hands on, fiddling with small engines and ATVs. But this was something different. Something that I could sense would be more permanent.

After spending a couple of years wrenching on restoration projects in my neighbor's garage, I stumbled upon a Series IIa for sale for a whopping $300, and pounced on it. The only functional part was a single headlight that I couldn't turn off. It was a real wreck, but I was in love. Several years later I had put entirely too much time and money into it, but I was driving my favorite car every day; you couldn't have smacked the smile off my face.

In the decades since I have had many jobs, but my one continuing passion was for the historic Land Rover. Mine had taken me to college, driven across many states and through countless miles and adventures off road. Together we had forded many rivers, faced hurricanes and forest fires and so much more. Anything life had thrown at me, the plucky little Land Rover was my faithful companion. As life continued, my experience with repair and restoration continued through several other Land Rovers, as well as Toyota, International, Dodge, Ford, semis, motorcycles and ATVs, the list goes on...

But if I was honest with myself, the one thing I'd always longed to do was build vintage Land Rovers to custom specifications. They were what I knew best, and the one vehicle I always enjoyed working with. So in 2017, my wife and I decided to take the leap and start building bespoke Land Rovers, and we have expanded into building other vehicles at the request of our customers. My experience working on and with these vehicles for so long has given me insight in how to take advantage of their strengths, as well as how to improve comfort and reliability for the modern driver. We take pride in our work, and are looking forward to many years building these truly unique and utilitarian vehicles.