Change makers

Green revival

Jaunt Motors is breathing new life into classic four-wheeldrives – bringing sustainable technology to adventure travel, writes Dylan Campbell.

Marteen Burger is the co-founder of Jaunt Motors, a Melbournebased start-up that takes Series Land Rovers and newer Defenders and swaps their dirty diesel engines with Tesla batteries and electric motors. Launched in 2018, Jaunt means ‘a short excursion or journey made for pleasure’ and captures the brand’s vision of sustainable classic motoring and adventuring.

How did Jaunt come to be?

My business partner Dave [Budge] and I worked together on and off for 12 years in the advertising industry. I am an executive producer and he's a director, and we worked in digital content production. We were at a point in our careers where both of us wanted to start a business. I wanted to get into new and emerging video technology, but I also really love a challenge. And when he came to the

TOP TO BOTTOM Jaunt Motors co-founder Marteen Burger; Offroading in a converted 1973 Land Rover Series III; Jaunt’s conversions have garnered interest in Australia and overseas. party with this story about converting old cars – and I am a bit of a car fan, thanks to my dad – I just thought, yeah, that sounds like a lot more fun. Let's do the challenging thing. We have been in 'start-up mode' for about three years ... but we're there now, able to start growing the team and pushing cars out in the way that we thought we would've about two years ago.

Why did you choose to focus on Land Rovers?

We chose the Land Rover because Australia is so dry and arid that a lot of these Land Rover aluminium panels have no rust. The chassis are in good nick, and we've got a supply of thousands of these cars. They're very popular. And people who love Land Rovers are rustedon fans who want to see them have a life beyond 2022.

Why convert them to electric? Why not just restore them?

We like to think we're giving them another 50 years of life. Dave loves to tell people that he once went camping and had this epiphany where he felt really bad about driving his diesel Defender through the bush and creating all of these horrible fossil fuel emissions. Why wouldn't he just convert the thing he loves to electric? We want to show Australia it's a good thing to move to an electric vehicle and it's just as fun and adventurous as your diesel fourwheel-drive.

How much does it cost and how long does it take?

The cost is 50 percent restoration, and 50 percent roughly the conversion. We offer an extremely premium restoration – it's groundup, every nut and bolt is changed. So a short wheelbase Series might start at $250,000. And depending on the customisations you make and the battery capacity, the cost goes up from there. With a later model Defender, there's no restoration required – it's just a pure conversion. That's around $150,000. As of 2023, we're quoting a six month maximum build time.

What’s it like to drive a Jaunt?

It's a hundred times better than the original. Steering an old vintage classic like a Series Land Rover is almost impossible; there can be 80 degrees of play in the steering alone. And changing gears can be really difficult. It's just a real stress to drive. But once you've converted it, added power steering and disc brakes, it's a quieter car, you don't have to wear earmuffs [laughs]. It's a lot more pleasurable and a completely different experience.

What does a normal day look like for you?

It looks a lot like a very typical business. I have not had a day that hasn't thrown me a challenge. My skill sets were really great to be able to run a start-up. However, I have had to learn so much more about the legal side of running a manufacturing business and brush up on my commercial finance skills. So there are some areas where I've just had an amazing learning curve, and it's been fun. A lot of people who start a business, they either say it's super-duper fun or super-duper challenging and tiring. I've gone through the full parabola of starting with excitement, up to completely challenging, tiring, run into the ground, and I'm now back onto the fun journey of, oh my gosh, where are we going next? This is so exciting. We can't fail. It's really picking up. So that's where I am at the moment. Ask me again in two months.

As Journeys closed for press, Jaunt Motors had been acquired by UK-based Fellten Electrified Systems and will now be known as Fellten.