The Land Rover Defender. The British icon. Initially identified under the ‘Land Rover Series’, the model played an important role in its early years with the British Army ordering its first trial batch a year after the Series I was launched at the Amsterdam Motor Show. From its launch in 1947 until 2020, the Defender’s design remained largely the same with automotive brands such as Twisted offering design and power upgrade packages to tailor the Defender to its owner. During the first 40 years, a range of petrol and diesel engines were on offer with different capacities ranging from 4 & 5 cylinder engines all the way up to a V8, with the first V8 being introduced in 1979 in the form of a 3.5L engine for the Land Rover Series models. To accommodate for the larger engine, the Land Rover lost its inset nose design.

The Defender range as we know it from 1990 onwards is split into the Defender 90, 90 Hard Top and Defender 110 & 110 Hard Top. The 90 denoted the shorter wheelbase 3-door design where the 110 has 5 doors. The numbers denoted the wheelbase in inches. A 130 was part of the Defender line-up which was designed to accommodate heavier loads than the 110 model with a four-door six-seater layout.

The most recent generation of defender had extremely big boots to fill on its debut in 2020, with the weight of the Defender’s history heavy on its shoulders. The modern styling is in keeping with the original blueprint – you can easily distinguish the Defender from any other 4x4 on the road. The old analogue Defender has been replaced with a tech-laden predecessor. This provides a much more refined and modern driving experience that produces a hybrid of the Defenders’ signature off-road capabilities and a comfortable ride. The modern technology engineered into the Dynamic Stability Control and all-wheel drive system allows the Defender to adapt to a change in terrain in an instant.

The Defender has always been a leader in its market and the new Defender keeps this tradition alive with a completely refreshed and modernised design that does exactly what the original Defender was built to do, with the addition of modern necessities.