Here’s Why Land Rover Brought Back Its Beloved Defender SUV

Land Rover is no doubt hoping its new Defender SUVs are capable of many things, but filling the brand’s white space in its lineup is likely at the top of that list.

The British-by-heritage, Indian-by-ownership Land Rover has arguably the most (off-) street cred around, thanks to its robust history of building rugged, can-do SUVs decades before there was an industry term for them. The brand — and its Range Rover lineup of posh models — was also instrumental in ushering SUVs into the luxury stratosphere at a time when the idea was uncommon. 

Currently, Land Rover has six models spread out from a tick over $38,000 to a princely $210,000 and counting (and a few crossovers on the Jaguar side of the business). But evolution has pushed each of these away from their humble, utilitarian roots and into softer, suburban, carpooling duties to and from rowing practice. 

Amid rampant demand by consumers for all things crossover- and SUV-related, this has created a hole in Land Rover’s lineup and a crucial opportunity to launch a new model. 

Keen to fill it while also burnishing its fading off-street-cred (I’m trademarking the term like LeBron’s ‘Taco Tuesday’), Land Rover has resurrected one of its most iconic nameplates: the Defender. 

Debuting at this week’s Frankfurt Motor Show, the new Defender 90 and Defender 110 harken back to one Land Rover’s most capable and sought-after models. The old Defender left the global market in 2016 after a 68-year run, though it was only available in the U.S. from 1992 to 1997. 

That was enough to whet the appetites of monied denizens in enclaves like the Hamptons, Martha’s Vineyard and Malibu, sending used prices soaring and creating entire industries around importing foreign models and upgrading and rebuilding those that existed in the U.S. 

The new off-roader will have some tricky navigation ahead of it. On the one hand, it will need to balance the off-road demands of Defender and Land Rover loyalists. 

At the same time, it will need to meet modern comfort expectations of the growing lifestyle buyer, one similar to buyers who are pushing the lifestyle truck segment to new heights. To say nothing of also meeting global regulations around crash tests, emissions, and efficiency. 

It will come in two sizes: the two-door 90 and the four-door 110 (those numbers used to refer to the Defender’s two wheelbase lengths but not on the new Land Rover Defender). 

The 90 seats five people in two rows while the 110 comes in two or three-row configurations. Both models also offer an optional jump seat up front adding an additional seat in a pinch. 

The 110 will come with one of two engines and while the 90 will be offered with one. 

The base engine (called P300) on the 110 will be a 2.0-liter turbocharged inline four-cylinder with 296 horsepower and 295 pound-feet of torque. 

The optional engine on the 110 — and the only one available on the 90 — will be a mild-hybrid setup called the P400. It uses a turbocharged inline six-cylinder engine and an electric supercharger powered by a small 48-volt lithium-ion battery to produce 395 horsepower and 406 pound-feet of torque.

Both engines will be paired with an eight-speed automatic transmission. 

Naturally — given the big shoes it needs to fill — this Defender should be comfortable when the pavement ends. 

Permanent four-wheel-drive will be standard on all Defenders with the higher-end versions getting more a sophisticated setup. A two-speed transfer case, locking differentials and an air suspension are also included. 

Though it lacks the traditional body-on-frame setup of old-school SUVs (and indeed its own namesake), Land Rover claims the new Defender’s all-aluminum unibody setup is three times stiffer than a body-on-frame unit. 

Further off-street-cred will come courtesy of a ‘wade-sensing’ feature. This system — part of Some models will even sense when the truck is wading in nearly three feet of water, going so far as to reduce the throttle response, recirculate cabin air, adjust the standard air suspension to its highest setting and lightly drag the brakes when out of the water to dry the rotors. 

Technology has also seeped into the new Defender. A digital rear-view mirror is optional, as are over-the-air software updates. 

So too is a fancy new ClearSight Ground View system that uses the truck’s exterior cameras to stitch together on the dashboard screen an image of the ground in front of you. This gives the driver a kind of off-road omnipotence while crawling up steep trails off-road and unable to see the details of what’s in front of them. 

This Defender 110 with the P300 engine will start at $50,925 including destination when it goes on sale in the U.S. next spring; the 110 with the optional P400 engine will start at $63,275. The Defender 90 launches later in 2020 at an undisclosed price.