We spent a week with the longest Defender of them all, and discovered that everyone else’s homework was probably copied from it.
I remember when the mood boards of car design studios were plastered with sharks, coral and feral land animals. Great symbols of engineering and architecture, like the Guggenheim and the Golden Gate Bridge. Lockheed fighter jets. Now, with the advent of the Chinese car industry, I imagine a single photograph of this car is all the inspiration required. Meet the Land Rover Defender 130. I’d argue it’s the source of the lunchbox profile echoed by an entire fleet of SUVs from the East. Imitation, flattery, you know the drill.
THE LOOKS
The Defender is a monolith, one that’s fallen over onto a velvety drivetrain that can scale and traverse pretty much everything in its path. And the 130 is the biggest of the lot: 5 099mm long (5 358mm if you count the spare wheel hanging off its tail), riding on a 3 022mm wheelbase. All of it is pushed out towards the four corners, leaving minimal overhangs.
Our test unit wore Gondwana Stone paint under a matte protective film (a R78 300 option, mind you), with a contrasting black roof and bonnet, 22-inch diamond-turned wheels, and orange brake calipers and recovery eyes for a dash of spice. It has that rare skill of looking equally at home outside a posh hotel, clambering up a sketchy mountain track or, heck, barrelling into the apex of your favourite mountain pass. Naturally, during my week-long test, I chucked all of this at it. And it delivered.
HOW IT GOES
Under the bonnet sits JLR’s Ingenium 3.0-litre twin-turbodiesel inline-six, good for 257kW and a wall of torque: 700Nm, from just 1 500rpm all the way to 3 000rpm. Paired with an eight-speed automatic and all-wheel drive, it hauls this 2 696kg seven-seater from standstill to 100kph in 6.8 seconds. Brisk is an understatement for something with this much real estate.
On tar, the air suspension irons out ruts and corrugations. Off it, the Defender reveals its party trick. Raise it to off-road height and you have 293mm of ground clearance, a 37.6-degree approach angle and up to 900mm of wading depth. Select a Terrain Response mode, engage low range and let the electronics sort out the traction. Repeat till you’ve run out of mountain. Oh, and it’ll tow 3 000kg while it’s at it.
LIFE INSIDE
Think of the cabin as a luxury car underpinned by copious amounts of utility. And toys, so many toys. There’s a 13.1-inch Pivi Pro touchscreen, a 12.3-inch driver display, a head-up display, Meridian surround sound and a ClearSight rear-view mirror that sees straight through your passengers’ heads. The front console is home to a fridge, and there’s a domestic plug socket for good measure.
Ours had Windsor leather and Kvadrat seats throughout, second-row captain chairs that are both heated and cooled, and a heated third row that adults can genuinely use. Connectivity and space galore.
VERDICT
At R2 410 800 before options (R2 547 415 as tested), the Defender 130 D350 X is no impulse buy. But it’s a seven-seat luxury liner, a weekend tow rig and a serious off-roader rolled into one. No wonder everyone else’s mood boards look like this.