Much ado about nothing?
Our Editor does what he has been waiting a year to do: take the new Defender off-road (and to the tip)
LRM’S editor takes the new Defender off-road
MUCH has been written about the new Defender, by ourselves too, of course. All my drives of the new Defender have been quick affairs, like a thief in the night. The first was as a passenger ride and then, just before the lockdown, I was given a tar road hour with one. Not enough time to get intimate or go off-road with one. So when OV20 ULA, a D240 S 110 new Defender is dropped off at our office for a week-long review, the plan is to treat it like my own old Defender. That would involve offroading, the tip run and of course, school drop-off and pickup. First up is the latter and my seven-year-old son Isaac jumps up and down in delight when I pull up outside his school. Regular readers will know that he is also a Landy fan.
While old folk like me are scared of all the electrickery on the new Defender, Isaac is like a duck to water and within seconds he is operating that 10” Pivi Pro screen (fitted extra with the S Spec) like it is a Playstation control during the climax of a Fortnite battle scene.
I did cheekily ask the JLR press office if they could slap on a few accessories like a roof top tent and winch, but I was told that would not be possible. I only know of two people who have Land Rover fitted winches (that will be over £5000, please) on their new Defenders. One is the former Camel Trophy winner and recent LRM cover model Bob Ives and the other is Kingsley Holgate, the African humanitarian. Both of these great gents use their new Defenders for things like ploughing the fields or expeditions. Remember those? It is what Land Rovers were first created for, not for slapping on spoilers and parking up at Premiership Football Clubs. Bob had told me that the winch fitment was ‘rather tricky’ and even sent me the 81-page ‘how to fit a winch to the new Defender’ PDF.
The highlight of my test drive is without a doubt taking the new Defender on the Billing off-road course with the knowledgeable owner Richard Arrowsmith as my co-driver
"While old folk like me are scared of the electrickery on the new Defender, my 7-year-old son Isaac is like a duck to water"
and guide. One of the extras on this Defender is the £870 offroad capability pack which includes Terrain Response 2 plus All Terrain Progress Control and configurable Terrain Response. Why would anyone buy a Defender without these? And why are they not just standard? That is like going to a fine restaurant and paying for hors d'oeuvres.
I have a confession to make. Before going off-road I had to watch a Youtube video to find out how to work the Terrain Response 2 system so that I could select a suitable setting. It had been a while since I had last driven such a fancy Land Rover. Also, in an effort to minimise the amount of knobs in a new Defender, what you think is the knob to control the cabin temperature doubles up as a knob for the Terrain Response 2.
Some of the marshals, who usually help out at the Billing off-road show, are camping at the venue and I feel like a sellout arriving in a £55,080 Defender. There are Tdi and Td5 old 110s in attendance plus a few Disco bobtails. You could not have picked a more Marmite audience if you tried. Still they are good enthusiasts and for them the jury is still out.
First up is the famous Billing mud run. Those that have been there recently will know that the difficulty of the run is determined by the route or line that you take. I select Mud and Ruts and raised the vehicle as high as it can go. It crawls through the easy route, without even raising a sweat. I have still not convinced the marshals. Next up is the tougher route. Later that evening I watch all the online videos that have been posted of the first new Defender to complete the Billing mud run. Respect is something you earn and the new Defender is slowly doing that, one enthusiast at a time.
The mud is not the most pleasant smelling and so Richard suggests we take it through the lake a few times. Despite all the recent rains the water is nowhere near the 900 mm max wading depth of the new Defender, though it is good to see the wade sensors in action.
For an extra challenge we take the new Defender to the
Riverside course where there are some tight and tricky inclines and declines. Despite the All-terrain tyres it slowly crawls up the slippery and tough incline where I normally have to gun it with my straight-six old Defender.
It is useful using the front and side cameras when offroading as you can’t see much when going up the steep hills so you might as well watch Pivi TV. The new Defender is a very wide, tall and big vehicle and that certainly takes a bit of getting used to. I genuinely feel that the old Defender driving position provides better all-round views, which is probably why they have added all the various off-road driving aids. It most certainly takes more skill to drive an old Defender than it does to drive a new one. Is the new Defender a reflection of modern society? Sanitised and boring?
It has to be noted that the new Defender I was in did not have the Clearsight Ground View technology as this would definitely help me figure out where my wheels were and more importantly if there was anything lurking below that could halt our progress.
Our final obstacles are a series of rather deep ruts. I select low range and Mud and Ruts again. The ruts are pretty deep and Richard has put a big mound in the way, about halfway down. I raise the Defender as high as it will go but still it takes an ever-so-slight scrape to the protective plates on the undercarriage. Once out of the riverside track we stop to survey the new Defender. It’s covered in mud from top to toe
but everyone in attendance is in awe what is has just done. Even more impressive is the ease with which it has done all the obstacles.
My final act before handing the vehicle back to JLR is a tip run, as I am busy renovating an old cottage at the moment. It is easy to flatten the second row of seats and I pack as much as it will take without damaging the interior. I know that my old Defender has more boot space but that is the sacrifice you make for the posh second row of seats in new Defender.
My verdict? It is faster, comfier, way more refined and definitely more capable than the old Defender. Your feet stay dry in it when it rains, your left calf does not get more of a workout than your right calf and you can expect more middle fingers than waves from old Defender drivers.
However it will never achieve the iconic status of the old Defender. At least not in what is left of my lifetime. Others might argue the end of the world will arrive before it achieves iconic status among Land Rover enthusiasts. How do I know this? About halfway into the week-long test drive, Isaac and I walk out of the house to drive to school. Isaac walks across to the old Defender and says ‘‘Dad can we please go in this one?’’
Is the new Defender worthy of the name Defender? It says so on the bonnet and the Land Rover UK website but it is not a Defender as we know it and it never will be. Would I buy one if it was the same price as my old one? Probably. But it isn’t, so we will never know.
"It's faster, comfier, more refined and capable than the old Defender, but it will never achieve the iconic status among enthusiasts"
YOU just knew it was going to be a good day for the fifth Patina National when you saw the line-up of motors. The site for this year’s event on the North Yorkshire Moors was thankfully still clear of any local lockdowns and with a full entry of 30 leaf-sprung Land Rovers, everyone was determined it was going to be a great day of trialling.
Due to the number of entries this year it was split into three groups. As for patina there was a host of Land Rovers with more patina than paintwork, including Ben Stowe’s 80in. As for legends there where a few including Toby Jefferson’s father’s restored trails and comp safari 86in, Matt Savage’s 80in V8 and Toby Savage’s standard 80in.
This particular 80 has a bit of story behind it. After breaking it at an event, previous owner Pete Wilford (aka Dipstick) left it broken on a trailer in an orchard for 32 years, where it sat until last year when Toby Savage persuaded Pete to sell it to him. After getting Black Paw 4x4 to get it running again, Toby had it back on the road. In fact, Toby towed the 80 on a trailer all the way from Leicester to North Yorkshire with Pete’s 80! Pete now 82, and not having competed in a Land Rover trial since that day, was back out driving it.
The sections on the trial were well set out – long, flowing and technical. Every section was cleared by everyone without suffering damage, despite Paul Sutcliffe in his 107in which bellied out on the lip of a bomb hole. It took a few careful moments to get him recovered as the LWB was sat on the exhaust pipe, which no one wanted to see being pulled off.
The only downside of the day was there was little interaction between the drivers, which normally happens at a trial, with social distancing adhered to at all times. However, there were shouts of encouragement when someone made a mistake, with Emrys Kirby maybe getting the loudest when he cross-axled his 80 in the bottom of a small bomb hole that was just the right size to catch it out.
Competition was as keen as ever, despite the drivers not having individual score cards due to Covid rules, so unless the driver was keeping count they didn’t always realise what score they were on until the results came out at the end.
In the standard 80in class it was Dave Ewins leading all day dropping only 5 points on the last gate of a section, finishing 1st in class and 5th overall. Matt Savage in his V8 80in finished 4th on 4 points. Surprisingly it
was not the 80s that were setting the scores for the longer motors to chase, rather the 86s and 88s seemed to be showing how the sections should be driven.
Nick Wilkes took 1st overall again this year on just 1 point and Adam Barker 2nd overall on 3 points, both in class 4 (86/88 Specials). Al Reany ended the day 3rd overall and 1st in class 2 for 86/88in standard vehicles. The one surprise of the day was how big a Series III/II Station Wagon looked, especially the one with a Stage 1-style front end compared to the SWB Series Is, which all look so small and nimble on the sections.
It was on section 12 that a good number of the drivers had their hopes dashed for a good overall result. With the number 9 gate catching out almost half the entries, doubling their scores in some cases. The rest of the
sections saw a good cross section of results which demonstrated what a well set-out trail it had been.
Pete Wilford’s comeback started with a little bit of nerves, but having not driven his old trailer for 32 years you couldn’t blame him. However, by his second section Pete was back into the swing of trialling again, even pointing out to the marshal that he’d got the hub through the gate so his score was a 2 not a 3. I suspect he finished the day feeling like he’d driven a trial in an 80in!
A nasty-looking gate on a side slope mid point on one section saw a few drivers over thinking their approach and either driving too slowly or taking a too high a line into the gate and being forced down the bank into the penalty cane. Again it was mostly the shorter 80s that seemed to have the most problems
on this gate and the slightly longer 86/88s doing better.
Overall the Fifth Patina National Trial was a massive success, even police – who arrived to check up that Covid precautions were in place and being abided by – thought so.
With a full entry this year despite the restrictions in place around the country, the Patina will be the must-do Series event in 2021, so if you want an entry you will have to act quickly when details and entry forms come out. A big thank-you to everyone at YLROC for a great trial and especially to Beth Benson, the MSUK club Covid Officer, for keeping us all safe on the day. And yes my SXF will hopefully be back out competing at the Patina next year again, and yes, I must do something about that clicking CV joint before then...