New Defender: all-rounder
Weeks ahead of its full reveal, LRM are one of the lucky few titles to take a ride in the new Defender
Weeks ahead of its full reveal LRM is one of the lucky few titles to take a ride in the new Defender
GETTING sweaty palms yet? We’re only weeks away now from the full reveal of the next generation of Defender – not just the car that Land Rover Monthly readers have been itching to see for the best part of a decade, but also one of the most eagerly-awaited vehicles in the entire car industry. Everyone wants to see how one of the most renowned motoring icons can be reinvented.
Of course, there are those who might suggest that the car that made the Land Rover brand doesn’t need reinvention at all. But company sources say that the new generation, codenamed L663, has to appeal to a broader church if it’s to sell in big enough numbers to be profitable. In other words, it’s no longer acceptable for Defender to be a niche halo
model, defining the brand; it has to wash its own face financially too.
This sort of mission statement could set alarm bells ringing – which is why Land Rover is keen to showcase just how much effort it has been putting into the new car. And why we find ourselves, on a blustery summer afternoon, standing beside one of the prototype Defenders in the car park of Jaguar Land Rover’s Gaydon test facility. Only a handful of titles are being allowed anywhere near the car ahead of its reveal, let alone a run in the passenger seat, but Land Rover Monthly is one of them.
The Defender in question isn’t actually one of the examples that has toured the world racking up more than 750,000 miles of dynamic and durability testing everywhere from the Arctic Circle to South Africa. Rather it has spent its entire life at Gaydon, undergoing what Land Rover charmingly refers to as “Extreme Events”. It has basically been slammed into kerbstones at acute angles, and hurled across gaps, time after time, to see if anything breaks.
Our guide for the day is Andy Deeks, Team Leader on Robustness and Durability for the Defender project. “Extreme Events sign-off vehicles generally go through tests that are designed to be just shy of the impacts that would set off the airbags,” he explains. “Or at least, they’re up to that point in the Defender; some of the other cars we’ve evaluated don’t react in the same way.”
Is he referring to cars from rival brands, or other Land Rovers, we ask? Andy and his engineers giggle, then someone quips: “Well, if you look hard enough in the bushes here you’d probably find the remains of a Lexus that didn’t like it very much.”
Time for some first impressions of the still-disguised Defender, close up. Ours is a five-door model – a 110, if we’re to believe the spec sheets that leaked on the internet recently. It is also clearly powered by a petrol engine, judging by the relative lack of diesel clatter as it sits idling in the Gaydon car park.
And while there’s a big sticker on the windscreen telling us that it is a ‘HYBRID’, we can’t make out any additional charging flaps under the complex camouflage. So it’s probably a 4 volt mild-hybrid instead of the PHEV
that’s also likely to bolster the range not long after launch.
Still in disguise it is impossible to discern the finer bodywork details but the proportions are clearly Defender: high bonnet, near-vertical windscreen, an assertive front end and that classic bluff, blunt rear treatment. The wheelbase looks long – and the leaked info suggests it is 3022 mm, so more than 20 cm longer than the last 110 – but the overhangs are encouragingly short, to the point we can’t wait to see the approach and departure angles.
Deeks and his team are into durability more than dynamic assessment, but they reveal that the Land Rover test track at Eastnor had to be beefed up to give the new Defender a test of both agility and strength.
The wheels are 20-inchers, and we’re told the options will range from 18s to 22s. But the test car’s tyres are 255/60s, allowing usefully squidgy sidewalls. And Deeks makes a point of telling us that our car for the day is on air suspension – perhaps an indirect admission that some versions of the car will retain more traditional coils.
You climb up into the new Defender in a reassuringly familiar way. But even acres of black material over the dash cannot mask how different the cabin will feel once you get there. The view out of the windscreen still has that commanding presence that we know and love, but the packaging is, well, akin to that of any modern vehicle. There’s elbow room where there should be. The rear seat is holding three people in comfort.