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Land Rover Defender car review

08/12/08

Price26,043
We like...It will go anywhere
We don't...Noisy and crude on road

It's the original, given a new engine and dash for the 21st century. Ds it remain a great car, though, or is its time past?The Defender. Despite the come-lately name (adopted only in 1990) this remains the original Land Rover. While it’s had updates, this 2008 version is still true to the earliest models, as sold 60 years back.

If you’ve not driven one before and you step into straight from a modern off-roader such as, say a Freelander, it'll feel crude and awkward. But stick with it, and other sides to its character show themselves. And they’re likeable.

It’s tough and workmanlike, although our top-spec XS model nods towards luxury with its part-leather seats, heated for driver and front passenger. But there are still exposed screw and bolt heads inside the cabin, while the skinny-thin doors sit on wonderful forged metal hinges. We’ll bet that, should you ever look inside a 1948 Landy, much of what you’d see can still be found in a new one.

The seating position is higher even than that of its big brother, the Range Rover, thanks to its huge wheels and fat-walled tyres. You peer through that tiny, flat-paned screen across a slab of a bonnet. The spare tyre can’t sit there, as it once did, because of new safety regs so it now hangs on the rear door. Visibility in any direction isn’t great, although long, slim door mirrors help with reversing. But if you want to adjust them, don’t look for a switch – just crank down the window and fiddle the glass into place by hand.

And if the screens get dirty, the tiny wipers leave large areas unswept, while the washers up front are feeble. In the cabin, the fascia is new but is more about usefulness than looks, resembling as it ds a cliff hewn from black plastic. Buttons are mostly big enough to punch with gloved fingers, although those picking the radio channels are tiny.

Two gear levers sit centrally, next to a bus-like steering wheel. One, long and beefy, selects the six forward gears plus reverse. Its action is long but definite – changes are slow and deliberate, not helped by a stiff clutch pedal. The other, much shorter, gives low ratios in each forward gear, that come in useful when towing a heavy trailer or if crossing rough ground, and also locks the transmission to provide extra grip.

Land Rover Defender First gear, even without the low ratios, is a crawler, making for slow and noisy progress away from traffic lights. The 2.4 diesel engine clatters and bellows, while the Defender’s generous ground clearance and high centre of gravity make its on-road ride bouncy and jolting. This 4x4 comes without airbags – you can’t get them, even as an option – and it may be that the whacks that the suspension delivers to the cabin would be enough to detonate them, were they fitted. Meanwhile, its turning circle is huge, making it a difficult cuss to get into and out of supermarket parking spaces.

Fuel economy is nothing special, and CO2 emissions are high. Land Rover has, at least, offset its environmental impact for the first 45,000 miles - a gesture included within the asking price.

But, for get-you-there dependability, it can’t be faulted. When heavy snow around motors.co.uk ‘s Harrogate headquarters had drivers of regular cars and even 4x4s owners floundering, the Defender chugged through and over the slippery stuff as if on rails. It can also manage a 45deg incline, drive across a 33deg slope and wade in half a metre of water.

And that’s why you buy one. It’s not much cop on-road, it isn’t that comfy and it certainly isn’t cheap. But as a tough, go-anywhere off-roader, there’s little to touch it.

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