Land Rover’s new Defender is different from the old one in every conceivable way

Let me take some time to talk about the title of this review, the ship of Theseus. This gentleman in Greek legend was the mythical founder of the city-state of Athens and he once had a ship. Now, this ship was venerated by the Athenians for centuries after Theseus lived, but wood, particularly exposed to seawater does rot away eventually and planks need to be changed. This led to various planks on the ship being swapped out often and led to a rather interesting situation, debated over for centuries. If every part of the ship was eventually changed, is it the same ship? My friends in college studying Philosophy had to debate this, but it is a very pertinent and interesting issue, particularly with the vehicle we will be talking about today — the new Land Rover Defender.

The first generation Defender, which was just the ‘Land Rover’ until the Discovery came about, was in production for just short of seven decades and there were over two million of them built. It was a rugged, go-anywhere sort of vehicle that was popular with armies and agriculturists alike. In the latest season of The Crown on Netflix, you might have even seen the Queen take Margaret Thatcher around her Balmoral Estate in Scotland in a Defender. And as the Defender’s rivals got more advanced, vehicles such as the Mercedes-Benz G-Wagon, the Defender remained an anachronism, a remnant of the past in a rapidly modernising world. The problem however became that it could not be sold in America anymore, not only the world’s largest car market but a market where such a car would shine.

So, late in 2019, Jaguar Land Rover brought us the ‘New’ Defender. This vehicle has nothing in common with the old car but the name. It is not even a body-on-frame design, rather a monocoque, like regular hatchbacks and sedans where the body itself provides the vehicle structural integrity. A few years ago, nobody could believe that a monocoque could do serious offroading, but it was actually driving the Compass Trailhawk. I realised that better manufacturing and metallurgy has made monocoque offroaders possible. With that singular, fundamental change of manufacturing philosophy, nothing about this new Defender is the same as the old one. But because it wears the same name, is it anything like the original?

Well, to start, Land Rover did not sell the old Defender for Indian roads, the fleet of them hauling tourists and locals around as well as working in tea-estates in Darjeeling being remnants from the 1950’s and 1960’s. I have driven an old Defender in the UK, though not a late-build one, but rest assured the new one plays up comfort. I believe the promotional videos about the new Defender and its ability to go anywhere will have to be checked through a pan-India journey. This car can wade through three feet of water and has a sonar system to help you do that, its terrain response 2 system can drive through almost any sort of surface and when the going gets tough, you still have four-wheel drive low range.

There is another thing though, the Defender 110SE, the long wheelbase model with the two-litre petrol engine that I was driving is just a tad expensive. And this was the second Defender I drove, the first being the dealer car in Delhi that had several additional accessories. The Defender SE has a regular ex-showroom price of Rs 86 lakh, almost a crore on the road but once you add accessories such as the panoramic sunroof, the nicer blacked-out alloys, the ashwood finish to the doors and on the console and the leather seats, all of which the media fleet car had, you will add almost 10-15 lakh to the final price. I am not sure how much rough road driving an owner of a one and a quarter crore vehicle would do. No doubt, there are those who would, but for many others, this is what I describe as a tashan vehicle, a ‘statement’ vehicle, much like the Mercedes-Benz G-Wagon is, and the German vehicle is still body-on-frame.

Even with the smaller two-litre petrol engine, this is not a very economical car. While Land Rover has a diesel engine and is offering a Plug-In Hybrid, one reason it needed to make a whole new platform is that the 300PS engine is quite thirsty indeed. Even with a soft foot, the best I managed was around eight kilometres per litre and with petrol going to touch Rs 100 soon in Delhi, that isn’t cheap to run. Although, I am curious to drive the PHEV and I hope I get a chance to do that soon enough.

Yes, it is a seven-seater, but if I wanted a practical luxury seven-seater, I’d jump at a Volvo XC90. If I wanted something good-looking for the city but with some rough-road chops, heck the Velar makes more sense at this price. This is a Land Rover Defender and paying BMW X7 and Mercedes-Benz GLS money for this does not really compute in my head. But I write about cars for a living, and I know better than most that logic often escapes car buyers. The ‘new’ Defender is a vehicle that can go anywhere, it is also a vehicle that if you drive around the city, you will be noticed, in a way that even a Velar will not, let alone a X7 or GLS. Seriously, if you want to make a statement, whether you are an actor or a politician and want to be seen in a big, bad bruiser of a car, this is the car for you. However, remember that just because the name is same, the vehicle does not have to be.