New Defender: Fit for the Camel Trophy?

Would you trust your new Defender on a tough off-roading expedition where your life depended on it?

Would you trust your new Defender on a tough off-roading expedition where your life depended on it?

WHEN JLR launched the new Defender at Frankfurt last September they went to extraordinary lengths to explain and demonstrate its off-road capabilities. The company clearly recognised that it had to show, and prove, that its new vehicle was a capable and accomplished off-roader worthy of inheriting the hallowed name.

Land Rover ambassador and professional mountaineer Kenton Cool drove it on the aptly-named ‘Expedition 001’ in Kazakhstan, a nod to the Land Rover’s indispensable role in journeys of exploration as far back as 1949 when its simplicity, practicality, fixability and relatively cheap price inspired a post-war generation to go out and explore the world. Six months later, journalists were introduced to the new Defender on a challenging off-road mini-expedition in Namibia, just before the pandemic put paid to the rest of the planned press launch.

JLR proudly proclaimed the new Defender to be ‘the most capable and durable Land Rover ever made’ and the global market reacted in gushingly positive terms. New Defender also has more electrickery on-board than any Land Rover that has gone before, and the press release suggested that ‘the data connection replaces the traditional toolkit’, which was perhaps down to one of the company’s software engineers getting a bit too carried away with it all.

Many hardcore Land Rover enthusiasts saw all this as deeply unattractive and a long way from the utilitarian values of the earlier models, and there were large numbers of harsh and strident voices insisting that to call the new vehicle a Defender was a travesty. Unfortunately, there were never enough of these supporters of the old Defender willing to buy it, which is one of the reasons why production came to an end.

Inevitably, things have now calmed down a bit and I reckon most people see the new Defender as an attractive and desirable vehicle well deserving of the Land Rover name. The order books are full, the waiting list is long, and there are plenty of people out there who want one, although very few will be buying one because they are planning an expedition to a far-flung corner of the world. Most are buying them for the same reason they buy any large SUV: lifestyle statement; nice thing to be seen in; inspires a sense of safety and security; tells everyone that you’re an adventurer at heart, even if only in your dreams!

But the real question we at LRM want to ask is this: would you drive a new Defender across the Sahara if your life depended on it? Or, for that matter, would you enter it in the Camel Trophy?