Land Rover Defender Tested 2004-09-01

Rating Quick Summary Not recommended. In many ways, you can't really compare a Defender to other cars. If you want a genuine off-roader, it's one of the very best, and you'll put up with its limitations. But, if not, it's expensive, poorly equipped, cramped and noisy.

Full Road Test

Land Rover likes to say that the Defender is basically the same vehicle that was launched back in 1948. In some ways, there's an element of truth to the claim: with a ladder chassis and live axles, it's still a basic off-road truck. But not even Solihull can go 60 years without feeling the winds of change, and in truth, the modern Defender is a very different proposition. The most obvious indication of this is the 2.4-litre turbodiesel engine beneath its bonnet, which was forced on Land Rover by tightening emissions laws. Sourced from the company's former owner Ford, it's a Transit unit, which has been modified to suit the demands of off-roading. Downstream of the engine is a six-speed manual gearbox, followed by the same full-time four-wheel drive set-up as before. This is combined with a two-speed transfer case, whose deep gearing is what lets the vehicle crawl over extreme terrain and pull away in front of giant trailers without clutch slip. Those live axles are coupled to anti-roll bars these days, in a quest to make the Defender a bit more civil on-road. This limits their articulation in the rough, so traction control is available to compensate; it's priced at £1250, which most off-road enthusiasts would laugh at when you can spend less money on a set of aftermarket diff-locks instead.

That's in keeping with Land Rover's pricing for the Defender in general, though, which is very high indeed. The vehicle is, nonetheless, exceptional at the kind of off-roading it's built for. This applies to whichever model you choose from a bewildering range of options. There are three wheelbases, nominally 90, 110 and 130 inches, plus pick-up, high-capacity pick-up, double-cab, van and station wagon body styles and three different trim levels. Either way, equipment is amazingly sparse for such an expensive vehicle. Alloys and air-con only come in on the top models; budget an extra couple of grand to add them to anything else. Base-spec vehicles, meanwhile, don't even get a stereo as standard. But at least there's an option pack including (gasp) central locking and (gasp, swoon) electric windows. With residuals that remain exceptional, however, the Defender does still make a case for itself. The latest model has a radically improved interior, too, with things like a real dashboard and for, the first time, proper heating controls.

It's still very cramped, though, and noisy. And bumpy. And slow. You do get used to all these things, though, somehow, and a massive step forward is that you can now have a conversation at 82mph without shouting yourself hoarse. Why 82mph? Because that's the Defender's top speed. It's limited there, and while desperately trying to make progress on the motorway you find the revs rising and falling insanely as you bounce on and off the governor. That's possibly the most annoying thing about driving the Defender. Its ride and handling appear horrific at first, but you'll come to find them tolerable, even grimly entertaining. Less so the lack of stowage options in the front, though, or a lack of usable space in the back, which is nothing short of absurd in such a huge vehicle. Thus, by the standards of other cars, the Defender is absolutely terrible value for money. But the point is that it isn't like other cars; it's something different, something special - and it's worth putting up with a lot for that.