ECD Unleashes Its Most Powerful Defender Yet
This engine isn't a gimmick. It's a direct result of client demand—bringing together decades of LS-based experience, clever integration, and the visceral performance that discerning buyers crave. With the first client Defender build already in production, the 700HP option sets a new benchmark for what's possible in a luxury SUV rooted in heritage but built for today.
'We've worked with LS-based platforms for years, so this evolution felt natural,' said Elliot Humble, Co-Founder and Head of Engineering at ECD. 'The real work was in smart packaging—integrating the supercharger, updating the front-end assembly, adding cooling, and upgrading the drivetrain to handle the torque. The fun part is, it looks like a classic Defender—but it drives like nothing else.'
A Power-First, Client-Driven Evolution
Rather than reinventing the wheel, ECD built on a trusted foundation—leveraging their extensive experience with LS-based drivetrains to offer an even more thrilling option for clients who want the feel of a classic with the power of a modern supercar.
Key upgrades for the 700+ HP configuration include:
New front-end rotating assembly to house the integrated supercharger
Enhanced cooling systems to manage added thermal load
Upgraded transmission, transfer case, and differentials to handle the increased torque
Refined ECU tuning and throttle mapping to maintain smooth drivability
Every ECD build is handcrafted, and now clients who want a Defender—or a Range Rover Classic—with untamed acceleration and unmistakable sound have a new option that fits seamlessly into the company's bespoke process.
Designed for Drivers Who Want More
This offering is tailor-made for the client who wants to turn up the volume on an already bold design. Whether it's cruising coastal highways or stealing the spotlight at a private collection, the 700HP Defender or Range Rover Classic adds American muscle to British heritage in a way that feels both timeless and thrillingly modern.
'It's not about chasing numbers,' added Humble. 'It's about giving clients the freedom to dream—and then making those dreams driveable. This engine is just another example of how we listen, evolve, and deliver.'
Now Available for New Builds
The 700HP BLUEPRINT engine is now available for Defender 90, 110, and 130 commissions—as well as Range Rover Classic builds. With the first vehicle already on the production line, this new option is expected to become a favorite among performance-focused collectors and luxury clients alike.
View images of the Blueprint engine being installed
About ECD Auto DesignECD, a public company trading under ECDA on the Nasdaq, is a creator of restored luxury vehicles that combines classic beauty with modern performance. Currently, ECD restores Land Rovers Series, Land Rover Series IIA, the Range Rover Classic, Jaguar E-Type, Ford Mustang, Toyota FJ, and highly specialized vehicles from its Boutique Studio. Each vehicle produced by ECD is fully bespoke, a one-off that is designed by the client through an immersive luxury design experience and hand-built from the ground up in 2,200 hours by master-certified Automotive Service Excellence ('ASE') craftsmen. The company was founded in 2013 by three British 'gear heads' whose passion for classic vehicles is the driving force behind exceptionally high standards for quality, custom luxury vehicles. ECD's global headquarters, is a 100,000-square-foot facility located in Kissimmee, Florida that is home to 105 talented and dedicated employees that hold combined 80 ASE and five master level certifications. ECD has an affiliated logistics center in the U.K. where its seven employees work to source and transport 25-year-old work vehicles back to the U.S. for restoration. For more information, visit www.ecdautodesign.com.
Media Contact: Kevin KastnerChief Revenue Officerkastnerk@ecdautodesign.com407-738-1056
A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/a4fbef25-f03f-4c8e-9dbc-389ca08e11ed
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
a minute ago
- Yahoo
Is the Dip in Amazon Stock a Buying Opportunity, or Should Investors Run for the Hills?
Key Points Amazon reported strong Q2 results, led by strong growth at AWS and great operational efficiency in its e-commerce business. Investors were disappointed with its outlook, as investments will weigh on its profitability. The stock has historically performed well when Amazon invests heavily. 10 stocks we like better than Amazon › While Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) crushed second-quarter earnings expectations, the company's cautious outlook sent shares spiraling lower. The drop sent the shares into negative territory on the year, as of this writing. Let's take a closer look at the e-commerce giant's latest results and guidance to see if this dip is a buying opportunity or if investors should run for the hills. Outlook spooks investors Amazon's cloud computing business, Amazon Web Services (AWS), is the company's largest segment by profitability and its fastest-growing. In the quarter, the segment grew its revenue by 17.5% to $30.9 billion, while operating income rose 10% to $10.2 billion. That was above the $30.8 billion revenue consensus, as compiled by StreetAccount, but trailed the growth of Microsoft's Azure and Alphabet's Google cloud. Amazon continues to be the market share leader in the cloud computing space and is investing heavily there. However, like others in the space, it is seeing constraints with demand exceeding capacity. Meanwhile, the company highlighted its custom artificial intelligence (AI) chips as having an edge in price performance. Amazon is leaning into the next wave of AI innovation: AI agents. While interest in AI agents is surging, many companies either lack the tools to build them or struggle to safely deploy them in production. To address that, Amazon introduced Strands -- an open-source framework for building AI agents -- and Agentcore, a secure, serverless environment to run them at scale. It's also rolling out AWS Transform, a specialized AI agent designed to help customers modernize legacy systems like mainframes and accelerate cloud migrations. On the consumer side of its business, Amazon's North America sales jumped 11% to $100.1 billion, while international sales climbed 16%, or 11% in constant currencies, to $36.8 billion. Operating income for its North America segment surged 47% to $7.5 billion, while its international segment posted operating income of $1.5 billion versus $0.3 billion a year ago. Advertising services continue to be a growth driver, as revenue soared 23% to $15.7 billion, driven by its sponsored ad business. That was ahead of the $14.9 billion analyst consensus, as compiled by StreetAccount. Third-party seller services revenue rose by 11% to $40.3 billion, while online store revenue climbed by 11% to $61.5 billion. Physical stores, such as Whole Foods and Amazon Fresh, saw sales grow by 7% to $5.6 billion. Subscription services revenue, meanwhile, jumped 12% to $12.2 billion. Overall, Amazon's revenue climbed by 13% to $167.7 billion, which came in well above the $162.1 billion analyst consensus, as compiled by London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG). Adjusted earnings per share climbed 33% to $1.68, which was also well ahead of analyst expectations of $1.33. Looking ahead, Amazon forecast Q3 revenue to be between $174 billion and $179.5 billion, representing 10% to 13% growth. Meanwhile, it guided for operating income to be between $15.5 billion to $20.5 billion compared to $17.4 billion a year ago. Analysts were looking for operating income of $19.5 billion (StreetAccount) on revenue of $173.1 billion (LSEG). Should investors buy the dip? Amazon has been nicely growing its revenue, led by AWS and its sponsored ad business. However, a just as important -- if not more important -- part of the story has been the operational efficiency it has seen in its e-commerce business. That showed up in Q2 via its e-commerce operating income, but investors were disappointed with its operating income guidance. The company is investing heavily in AI infrastructure for AWS, which is leading to some higher depreciation costs. At the end of the day, this investment is needed and will benefit the company, although it will weigh on profitability in the near term. Turning to valuation, the stock trades at a forward price-to-earnings ratio of about 34 times 2025 analyst estimates and 29 times 2026 estimates. That's a historically attractive valuation for the stock, and Amazon has often performed well when it invests heavily. As such, I'd use this pullback as a buying opportunity. Should you buy stock in Amazon right now? Before you buy stock in Amazon, consider this: The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the for investors to buy now… and Amazon wasn't one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years. Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $624,823!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $1,064,820!* Now, it's worth noting Stock Advisor's total average return is 1,019% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 178% for the S&P 500. Don't miss out on the latest top 10 list, available when you join Stock Advisor. See the 10 stocks » *Stock Advisor returns as of July 29, 2025 Geoffrey Seiler has positions in Alphabet. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Alphabet, Amazon, and Microsoft. The Motley Fool recommends the following options: long January 2026 $395 calls on Microsoft and short January 2026 $405 calls on Microsoft. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. Is the Dip in Amazon Stock a Buying Opportunity, or Should Investors Run for the Hills? was originally published by The Motley Fool
Yahoo
a minute ago
- Yahoo
Could Shopify Help You Become a Millionaire?
Key Points Shopify's one-stop shop continues to lock in independent merchants. But its business is gradually maturing and it's still trading at premium valuations. It probably won't replicate its millionaire-making gains from the past decade. 10 stocks we like better than Shopify › Shopify (NASDAQ: SHOP) has minted a lot of millionaires over the past decade. The Canadian e-commerce services provider went public in 2015 at a split-adjusted price of $1.70, and it now trades at around $120. A $15,000 investment in its IPO would be worth a whopping $1.06 million today. But can Shopify replicate those millionaire-making gains over the next 10 years? Let's review its competitive advantages, growth rates, and valuations to decide. Why did Shopify grow so rapidly? Shopify's self-service e-commerce platform allows merchants to set up their own online stores, process payments, fulfill orders, and manage their digital marketing campaigns. That one-stop shop is an appealing option for merchants that don't want to join a massive third-party marketplace like Amazon. From 2014 to 2024, Shopify's revenue grew at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 56%. During that decade, it expanded its ecosystem with its Shop Pay digital payments platform, Shopify Capital financing services, Shopify Plus service for larger enterprise merchants, and point-of-sale systems for brick-and-mortar stores. It united its merchants on its consumer-facing Shop app, integrated its services into more social media platforms, expanded internationally, and facilitated more cross-border transactions with Shopify Markets. What happened over the past few years? Shopify's growth accelerated during the pandemic as more businesses scrambled to expand their online businesses. Its soaring gross merchandise volume (GMV), gross payment volume (GPV), and total revenues -- along with the broader meme stock rally -- drove its stock to a record closing price of $169.06 on Nov. 19, 2021. Metric 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 GMV growth 96% 47% 12% 20% 24% GPV growth 110% 59% 24% 29% 32% Revenue growth 86% 57% 21% 26% 26% Data source: Shopify. Shopify's growth cooled off in 2022 as it lapped its pandemic-driven gains. Inflation, higher interest rates, and other macro headwinds exacerbated that slowdown. But in 2023 and 2024, its GMV and GPV growth accelerated again as the macro environment stabilized, it rolled out more AI tools for its merchants, it integrated Amazon's "Buy with Prime" buttons into its platform, and it expanded its overseas and enterprise segments to curb its dependence on its smaller North American merchants. Shopify originally wanted to build its own first-party logistics network. But in 2023, it divested its entire logistics division, laid off thousands of employees, and aggressively reined in its spending to stabilize its margins. That strategic shift was abrupt, but it helped it turn profitable again in 2023 and 2024 (from a steep loss in 2022). Could Shopify generate more millionaire-making gains? From 2024 to 2027, analysts expect Shopify's revenue and earnings per share to grow at a CAGR of 22% and 7%, respectively. Its core business should keep expanding, but its near-term margins could be compressed by tariffs, which would hurt its merchants that rely heavily on overseas products and threaten its growing dependence on bigger enterprise customers, which mostly generate lower-margin revenues than its smaller merchants. But at $120 per share with a market cap of $158.5 billion, Shopify already trades at 87 times next year's earnings and 12 times next year's sales. Its early-mover advantage in the e-commerce services space, the stickiness of its platform, and its robust growth rates might support that higher valuation -- but could also set it up for a steep drop in a market downturn. For Shopify to turn a $15,000 investment into $1,000,000 again, its stock would need to rise nearly 6,570% to $8,000 and boost its market cap to $10.6 trillion. For reference, Nvidia -- the world's most valuable publicly traded company -- is worth $4.2 trillion. Therefore, it seems unlikely that Shopify, which is growing its maturing business at a much slower rate than it did over the past decade, will come anywhere close to achieving those millionaire-making gains. That said, it could still be a great way to profit from the long-term expansion of the booming e-commerce market. Should you invest $1,000 in Shopify right now? Before you buy stock in Shopify, consider this: The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the for investors to buy now… and Shopify wasn't one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years. Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $624,823!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $1,064,820!* Now, it's worth noting Stock Advisor's total average return is 1,019% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 178% for the S&P 500. Don't miss out on the latest top 10 list, available when you join Stock Advisor. See the 10 stocks » *Stock Advisor returns as of July 29, 2025 Leo Sun has positions in Amazon. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Amazon, Nvidia, and Shopify. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. Could Shopify Help You Become a Millionaire? was originally published by The Motley Fool Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Newsweek
a minute ago
- Newsweek
We Must Protect American Courtrooms From Foreign Interference
In most American courtrooms today, a party in court could be financed by foreign interests (and other unrelated third parties) without the other party ever knowing it. This alternate funder may be an investor hoping for uncorrelated returns, a wealthy donor with personal or business interests in the case, or an affiliate of an adversarial nation seeking to undermine U.S. competitiveness. The third-party litigation funding industry operates in the Wild West. Any outside group can pay the bills for a party in a legal dispute. They do this often in exchange for a percentage of an eventual settlement. Absent a handful of states that have passed disclosure laws affecting their own state court systems, the vast majority of state and federal courts do not require parties to disclose who's paying their legal costs—not to other parties and not even to the presiding judge. A stone sign for the United States Court House in downtown Los Angeles, Calif. is pictured. A stone sign for the United States Court House in downtown Los Angeles, Calif. is pictured. Getty Images But disclosure is critical and not just for transparency's sake. Incentives matter in the courtroom. The American civil litigation system is premised on fairness, impartiality, and the pursuit of justice. If a party's funders have hidden motives that stray from the desire to fairly resolve a dispute, trust in the system is put at risk. Foreign sources of litigation funding introduce a whole new set of perverse incentives. A foreign funder may finance a case in order to gain access to sensitive intellectual property or even to evade sanctions that prohibit transactions or investments in U.S. capital markets. Also, since litigation funders have their own monetary and non-monetary goals, the funder may push its client to demand steeper settlement terms than the client would otherwise consider. These are not hypothetical situations. In 2024, Bloomberg Law reported that a group of sanctioned Russian billionaires created an investment fund to back bankruptcy lawsuits in New York and London thus allowing the oligarchs to steer (launder) tens of millions into western financial institutions. In another instance, China-based technology firm PurpleVine financed several intellectual property lawsuits against Samsung. This was discovered by a lone overseeing judge in Delaware who luckily requires litigation financing disclosure in his courtroom. Had the case not crossed his desk, the defendants may never have known that their case was hardly a mere legal challenge but, in actuality, a case with national security importance. Foreign donors may also fund lawsuits that advance their personal agendas. Last year, Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) filings revealed that an Australian mining billionaire was paying the legal bills for a coalition of environmental nonprofits in their lawsuit against ExxonMobil. The billionaire, Andrew Forrest, runs a mining empire that he aims to convert into a clean-energy provider—demonstrating both ideological and anticompetitive reasons to target an American oil major that he would not otherwise have standing to sue. This backdoor litigation is getting foreign companies and even foreign governments into American courtrooms they otherwise wouldn't be able to access. Since the third-party litigation funding industry is entirely unregulated, each of these examples only came to light by accident: strong investigative reporting; a lone judge's standing transparency order; and a buried FARA filing. But in each instance, the discovery of foreign funding changed both public perception and legal strategy. Routine civil suits became vehicles for money laundering, corporate espionage, and personal grievance. Unregulated third-party litigation financing is a crucial vulnerability for American competitiveness and national security. In order to secure a just and fair civil justice system, it's only common sense that parties should know who they're up against. We must act quickly as this "hidden party" industry is growing at a pace stressing the non-existent regulatory regime. One estimate values the global market at $17.5 billion in 2025, and it is forecasted to grow to $67.2 billion by 2037. Naturally, it's also becoming more complex. Opportunistic actors are developing secondary markets—a "stock exchange for lawsuits"—which, if left unregulated as well, will only create new avenues for foreign actors to distort the civil justice system and surreptitiously move capital. Regulators can be certain that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and other adversarial nations have taken notice of this influx of cash into the industry. The CCP may be responsible for a significant part of this cash flow, but we cannot be sure. Under the current system, neither national security officials nor legal professionals have any way to discern the source of billions of dollars propping up civil suits from behind the curtain. A number of bills in state legislatures and in Congress have been introduced to require disclosure of any third-party litigation financing—of foreign funding in particular. This is a welcome development. Lawmakers in Washington and in statehouses across the country should move with alacrity and act on this issue before American companies, our justice system, and our capital markets are subjected to further foreign meddling. Former Representative Michael Patrick Flanagan (R-Ill.) previously represented the 5th District of Illinois in the U.S. House of Representatives and sat on the Committee on the Judiciary. An attorney, he previously served in the U.S. Army and retired at the rank of captain. The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
