Alibaba Finds: Brand new Defender 90, Toyota AE86, Land Cruiser 40 bodies

Need a body panel (or a body) for your classic car?

There really are some strange things you can find on these online selling platforms. I mean, all you need to do is to look at Lazada, Shopee, AliExpress, or even Temu to see how China’s industries can literally build you anything you want or need.

This one, however, is unusual: there’s a company that is selling brand-new bodies of classic cars and SUVs… on Alibaba.

Several companies on Alibaba have listings that offer body panels and even complete body shells of cars that have been out of production for decades. Some of the vehicle shells listed include the Toyota AE86 liftback with the cutout for the pop-up headlights, the Toyota Land Cruiser 40 and 45 pick-up, the classic Land Rover Defender 90, and many more.

The bodies are coated in primer and are shipped out from Jiangsu or Shanghai. They also have replacement door panels, fenders, hoods, basically anything you need to repair or restore or even build up a new car entirely. It’s what owners of classic cars have always wanted: a supplier of brand new body panels or even shells to replace rusted or twisted or smashed up panels on their older vehicles that have long outlived the supply chain for parts like rubber moldings, plastic components, electrical parts, mechanical bits, and body panels.

Of course, we’re all wondering how these companies (Yangzhou Body Auto Parts and Jiangsu Aodun) can produce these body panels and parts, as the technical data packs or blueprints of such vehicles probably won’t be available to these third-party manufacturers. The only answer that remains is something we’ve seen in the R&D centers of several of China’s major automakers from over a decade ago: 3D scanning.

One of the videos posted by the sellers includes an AE86 shell being assembled with dots on the panels all around the shell. This suggests that they’re doing 3D scanning of some sort to verify the dimensions and tolerances of the shell. Such technology was also applied to scanning cars in the days when China’s auto industry was mainly producing (ahem) “close interpretations” of existing models from other brands.

The quality is also another matter that some would be curious about, but for that, we can check out the comments. Buyers from Europe have commented that the shells and panels aren’t 100% perfect, but close enough for them to mend or adjust as needed. Still, a new panel is better than a reconditioned surplus panel for your 90, FJ40, AE86, and more.

Ordering, however, is not like your typical Lazada or Shopee order. There are legalities and registrations to deal with, but there are ways to address that properly with the LTO. The more complicated matter is that the companies need an MOQ or minimum order quantity. You can’t just order 1; you may need to order 5 or even 10.  That means a group buy may be the way to go… unless you plan on having several sets of spares.