The Land Rover Defender is a four-wheel-drive off-road luxury 4x4 from British automotive company Jaguar Land Rover. The car was launched on 10 September 2019 at the Frankfurt Motor Show. It is significant for being the first all-new version of the Defender, breaking the engineering lineage with its predecessor, a descendant of the original Series Land Rovers of 1948. The unibody-based Defender is aimed at a more upmarket segment than its predecessor.
The Defender replaces the original Land Rover Defender (1983-2016). The cars are built in Slovakia at Jaguar Land Rover's Nitra plant,[3] a manufacturing facility which opened on 25 October 2018. The plant covers an area of about 300,000 square metres.[4]
The car, which shares no components or technology with its predecessor Defender model, features permanent all-wheel drive, locking differentials in the centre and rear, and a two-speed transfer case. Unlike the previous Defender models, the new model will feature an aluminium unibody instead of a body-on-frame construction.[5] All Defender 110 variants come with air suspension as standard whilst the 90 can be optioned with coil springs or air suspension. Deliveries to customers of the 5-door Defender 110 began in early 2020, to be followed by the 3-door Defender 90 in late 2020.
The Defender V8 is a performance variant of the Defender, with faster speed than the Defender X. It uses a supercharged AJ133 5.0-litre V8 engine. Top speed ranges from 191–240 km/h (119–149 mph), with 386 kW (518 hp), with a 0-100 of about 5.2 to 5.4 seconds.[22][23] It is 625 N⋅m (461 lbf⋅ft), and uses the same supercharged 5.0-litre V8 engine from the Jaguar F-Type. As of March 2023, the Defender V8 is only available in the compact 90, and the mid-size 110.
The Land Rover Defender 75th Anniversary Edition[19] is a modified variant of the 2020 Defender with all Grasmere green paint (as a nod to the original 1948 HUE 166, 1st production Land Rover), for both the main body, wheels and interior cross beam. It is available in either a 300 horsepower, mild or plug-in automatic, all wheel drive diesel hybrid. The 75th Anniversary Edition also features a unique '75 Years' graphic placed across the entire vehicle. It can be purchased with either a panoramic sunroof or folding fabric roof. The mild hybrid version can be purchased with either 90" or 110" wheelbases, whilst the plug-in is strictly the 110" variant. The starting price for this car is around £86,000 ($105,000)
