PRODRIVE HUNTER & BOWLER DEFENDER
Off-road rallying is motorsport at its most extreme, and the Prodrive Hunter and Bowler Defender are two different ways to travel absurdly quickly across the toughest terrain. We strap ourselves in…
Built to tackle the worst that a rally stage can throw at them, these two off-roaders offer a very different kind of evo challenge. We try them
THIS IS THE PRODRIVE HUNTER. Built to battle the rigours of international rally raid events, it is arguably the final piece of the puzzle for one of the most successful and celebrated names in world motorsport. With decades of success at the highest levels of world rallying, touring cars, Le Mans and F1 (via David Richards’ management of the BAR Grand Prix team at the turn of the millennium), the Hunter has overall Dakar victory squarely in its sights. Driven by Sébastien Loeb and Dakar veteran Nani Roma, the Hunter and the BRX team (backed by Bahrain’s sovereign wealth fund) made their debut in this year’s event, and while it was not without incident (Loeb eventually retired), Roma secured 5th overall – the best-ever result for a new team and vehicle on its maiden Dakar. Now, in arguably its toughest test yet, the Hunter is being driven by a handful of motoring journalists…
You really have to stand next to this machine to appreciate its scale. At 4.5m long, almost 2m high and weighing 1850kg dry, it dwarfs regular competition cars. Built around a bespoke tensile steel tubular structure, the front end cradles a 400bhp/500lb ft 3.5-litre Ford Ecoboost V6 engine. Behind the tight two-seat cockpit are mounted spare wheels and a colossal fuel tank that can hold up to 500 litres of petrol.
Suspension is wishbones all-round, controlled by twin fully adjustable dampers at each corner. A six-speed sequential gearbox drives all four wheels through front, centre and rear differentials, with 16in wheels wrapped by regulation rubber for the T1 class in which the Hunter competes. It’s a slightly odd-looking thing. The carbonfibre body is designed by Ian Callum, so there are sculpted surfaces and clean detailing that give it a strangely familiar look (squint and it could be a super-sized Jaguar F-pace from some angles), but there’s so much hardware beneath it that the body doesn’t quite look big enough.
The plan is for us to ride alongside Roma, then drive it ourselves on a surprisingly long, fast and potentially unforgiving test loop that has been improvised out of the British Army’s Royal Tank Regiment facility at Bovington in Dorset. The Hunter is described, by Prodrive at least, as a driver-friendly machine. This might be true but, as we’re about to discover, all things are relative, for while it’s doubtless straightforward to operate, driving it as its makers intend is another kettle of fish entirely. At least if you’re dialled-in to driving on a mettled surface in a low-slung circuit racer.
Roma is a true legend of Dakar. With 25 starts and two victories – one on a motorcycle in 2004, the other in a car in 2014 – few have more skill or experience than the 49-year-old Catalan driver. He’s a super-nice man, too; friendly, fun and brimming with the assured confidence of someone who is a master of their craft.
The first thing that strikes you upon being invited to climb into the passenger seat is just how high off the ground the sill is. Not that I’ve ever ridden a horse, but it seems like trying to get on one without a mounting block. Once in, the next thing you notice is how cramped the cabin is. Imagine a Range Rover with the cockpit space of a Lotus Exige and you won’t be far off.
‘YOUR HEAD RATTLES AROUND LIKE A PEA IN A WHISTLE’
The next few laps are a real eye-opener. And, at certain points, an eye-closer. Not because it feels like Roma is going to throw us into the trees, but because the pace he’s able to carry across terrain that would eviscerate a WRC car is entirely at odds with what your brain tells you is possible. It really is a tremendous demonstration, both of the Hunter’s capabilities and Roma’s effortless skill. The way he can make the car pivot using left-foot braking is befuddling. When combined with the additional assistance of the deep ruts – which he uses like a Scalextric car uses the slot – it’s otherworldly.
Every now and again the Hunter climbs out of the ruts and kicks loose, but even then it’s always driving forwards, Roma taking every opportunity to upshift and tap back into the Ecoboost’s rich reserves of torque. It feels pretty much unstoppable and makes a fabulous noise: a sharp blare that’s not dissimilar to Ford’s GT Le Mans class winner.
The punishment is intense and relentless. Anything beyond the hold of your safety harness flaps and flails about unless you bury your feet into the bulkhead and keep your arms tight to by your sides. Meanwhile your torso is braced against the pummelling, core muscles engaged, breaths fast and shallow – or held until after the next foreseen impact.
It’s hard to believe those endless, majestic desert stages you see from Dakar coverage are this rough, but when we complete the repeat loop and head towards the paddock, Roma confirms some stages can be like this for hundreds of kilometres. Likewise, he says, the attacking pace at which we’ve tackled this makeshift stage is also representative of Dakar.
The suspension is extraordinary, wheels punching up and down in the arches like a mogul skier’s knees, brutal potholes and ridges absorbed as though somehow disappeared in a sleight-of-hand magic trick. And yet the incessant pummelling is exhausting as your head rattles around like a pea in a whistle and your eyes attempt to scan the road ahead. This is sensory overload in three dimensions. And now it’s my turn.
As is the way with modern motorsport machinery, everything works brilliantly. The sequential transmission is a doddle to punch up and down, the brakes reassuringly powerful, the steering light enough to require modest effort while retaining a sense of connection. Trouble is, because there’s so much going on in terms of vertical body control, lateral body roll and ever-changing traction levels at either end of the car, if you wait to read what the Hunter is doing before you commit with your inputs you’re always one or two steps behind the unfolding action.
To be totally honest I feel pretty lost during my stint. Which is fine, actually, because it’s always good to be challenged. Much of the challenge lies in becoming comfortable with the lofty ride height and the momentum associated with what must be a good 2 tons with today’s fuel and other fluids. Throw in a loose and ever-changing surface, soft suspension and chunky off-road tyres and the feelings I’m getting from the car are entirely alien.
What’s frustrating is the sense that the car is poised and waiting for you to give it some instructions. Indeed it’s all but screaming at you to make your steering inputs early, get the car lined-up, chase the throttle, get the differentials working and use the knee-deep ruts and hip-high berms to positive effect.
When you do manage to drive the car into and through a corner or two with meaningful conviction, it’s a miraculous sensation. The traction, lateral and forward acceleration, suspension control and general poise somehow brings a kind of peace to the otherwise violent process of lobbing this huge machine across punishing terrain. And then I hesitate, effectively coasting into the next sequence of corners, and it feels like the rug has been pulled out from beneath us.
In a welcome but somewhat unexpected way, this test has taught me as much or more about Dakar and its drivers as it has about the car. Roma says you simply cannot attack the stages for seven or eight hours a day with a flat-out mindset. Rather you need to find what he describes as your tempus – the sweet spot at which you settle into the rhythm of the stage and its surface, flowing with it rather than fighting against it. Even on this test stage you can see him find this zone, and I’m not sure I’ve experienced a man and machine more in harmony.
Such is the pace of development in rally raid that Prodrive has already designed and built an evolution of the Hunter for the new T1+ class: some 300mm wider, with 350mm of wheel travel compared to 280 for the T1, massive 37in tyres mounted on 17in rims versus the T1’s 32in tyres and 16in rims.
Even better news is that Prodrive is building the rumoured road version of the Hunter. With more power (500+bhp), a more luxurious interior and Ian Callum once again responsible for the styling, the project is well advanced. Judging by the grin on David Richards’ face when discussing it, this desert hypercar will be one of the wildest road cars of 2022.
IF YOU LIE AWAKE AT NIGHT IMAGINING a 200mph blur of Armco and trees in your peripheral vision as you hammer down towards the first chicane on the Mulsanne straight, if you doodle sports prototypes when you should be making notes in Zoom calls, then you probably know where you’d start. Something like a Radical would be the logical first stride down a path to Le Mans. Similarly, karting then Formula Ford are the well-worn initial step on the staircase to Formula 1. But what if you dream of dunes and day-long stints at the wheel in the Dakar? What if the BRX Hunter on the previous pages is your idea of the pinnacle of motorsport? Well, you probably want to start with something like the Defender Challenge. The sevenround, single-make championship takes in traditional rallies like the Trackrod as well as more extreme hill rallies.
I took part in the Scottish Borders Hill Rally back in 2014 and I’ve honestly never laughed so much while also trying to be competitive. The combination of flat-out fire roads and technical sections that tested traction (and my nerves) to the limit during daylight and darkness felt like a real adventure.
That was in the old Defender Challenge car, which was… interesting to drive. Closely based on a standard 2.2 turbodiesel Defender 90 it was, unsurprisingly, incredibly capable over the rough stuff. But speed could be scary and slides needed to be kept very neat otherwise you’d almost certainly end up in the mother of all tank-slappers before spinning and possibly even rolling. This new Defender Challenge car is rather different.
As with the previous generation, it has been built by Bowler, famous for creating such rally raid icons as the Wildcat and Nemesis. Sadly the company’s founder, Drew Bowler, died in 2016 and I was a little worried that when Jaguar Land Rover bought Bowler in 2019 it would become a rather watered-down wing of the larger company. Thankfully that doesn’t seem to be the case and there are some familiar faces at the launch of the new car, all of them keen to stress that Bowler is still very independent but now has valuable access to some of the test and development facilities of JLR.
They’ve clearly put the facilities to good use too, because although at first glance the Challenge car looks very like a standard new Defender with some stickers and extra ride height (25mm if you’re interested), a huge amount has changed. Open the driver’s door and before you even get in you might notice that a 71mm portion has been taken off the bottom of the doors to allow the 6mm aluminium underbody protection to wrap around the sills. There is also more bracing under the car, the front and rear subframes have been strengthened, the suspension turrets are braced, there are new mounts for the gearbox and engine and there is obviously a full FIA roll cage inside. Extra lights have been integrated front and rear, Bowler’s 18in wheels are 25 per cent stronger, there are bespoke Fox dampers, there is increased cooling capability and to crown it all there is the most impressive row of windscreen washer jets I have ever seen.
When you tally up the weight savings from stripping out
the original vehicle and then putting in a lot of additional metalwork, the end result is a car that weighs about the same as the standard road car. The 2-litre Ingenium petrol four-cylinder and the eight-speed auto both remain largely untouched, so there is 296bhp and 295lb ft of torque on offer. It’s not the most exhilarating of competition drivetrains, but it equates to a reasonably brisk 0-60mph time of around 6.7 seconds.
Sitting up high but clamped in place by a bucket seat and harness is a strange feeling at first. In fact the whole ambience of the cabin is curious because it is stripped out and bare but also has quite a bit of the dash architecture still in place, including the large touchscreen. With the aircon on, it certainly feels like a much more comfortable and spacious place to spend time in than the old version.
One of the changes you might not notice initially is that Bowler has moved the whole dash further into the cabin to both allow for the extra bracing behind and also place the gear selector more conveniently for the driver. Not that you need to use it once you’ve put the Defender in drive because there is a single Wrc-style paddle behind the steering wheel that you can use to change gear – push away to go down a gear, pull it towards you to go up – or you can simply leave the ’box to shift itself, leaving you to concentrate on the terrain ahead. The latter is an option that will sound like heresy to some but I can imagine it would be very welcome for those with a lot to get used to in their first events.
There is certainly a good variety of terrain on the test track that has been set out by Bowler: everything from tarmac to deep ruts and some jumps. You feel quite remote from the ground that you’re covering but the more time you spend behind the wheel the more you learn to trust the Defender and understand that you simply don’t need to feel a large amount of what is passing beneath you. You lean into the ruts and you can take huge liberties with a lot of the apexes. The jumps highlight just what a good job the dampers are doing because the landings are as well controlled as a gymnast sitting down on a sofa. Even when the car takes a little bit of angle in the air at something approaching 70mph everything remains calm when the tyres come back to earth.
Through a quick but blind left-hander on the tarmac, the Defender slides a little more with every lap, but as you load up the suspension you can feel that the support is there. It all stays remarkably flat, and even when the oversteer builds there is the speed in the steering and the response from the chassis to comfortably catch the resulting slide. Liberties can be taken and although you need to be patient at times and allow leeway for that weight and ride height, you can really chuck it around.
It shouldn’t be that much of a surprise that the new Defender Challenge car is so good to drive. When I drove the standard 110 out in Africa last year, it was a willing accomplice pushing hard on the sand and gravel tracks. A regular 90 with this drivetrain costs from just over £50,000, so it’s no surprise that with all the work that’s gone into it you’ll need nearly twice that for this Bowler version. The price does also include entry to and event support on the Defender Challenge Championship, however, and I think this is a vehicle that could take you on adventures beyond that in the years after – maybe even ones that would see you lining up alongside the likes of the BRX. While the introductory cold, muddy service parks of England, Wales and Scotland might seem a world away from the hot, sandy bivouacs of the Dakar, from my experience they will still feel like a big old adventure for a first rung on the ladder.