We got behind the wheel of the new Land Rover Defender 130 to find out if this enormous, £98,400 SUV retains the charm of its little brother:
Still, for bigger families with older kids, the Defender should offer plenty. The outer seats in rows two and three have Isofix child seat points, as does the front passenger seat; both second and third rows fold down 40:20:40, for optimal carrying versatility; and with all the back seats flat, the Defender offers more than 2500 litres of outright storage. It’s not quite a van-sized carrying space, but it’s not far off.
Our first drive in this new Defender derivative was at and around Land Rover’s UK experience centre at Eastnor Castle, Herefordshire. We were driving in a D300 mild-hybrid diesel version of the car in higher-end X-Dynamic HSE trim and took in both on- and off-road test routes. Off road, the 130 handles and performs much as a Defender 110 does. Although the 110 was already a big car anyway, the common wheelbase means there’s no marginal trade-off on agility or manoeuvrability for the extended version.
On the road, Land Rover’s well-tuned air suspension reins in the Defender 130’s greater size and mass well, and its D300 Ingenium diesel engine also has the torque and refinement to make performance assured and pleasant. We didn’t have the opportunity to test the car fully loaded with occupants, in which condition you would doubtless be aware of the extra weight being carried.
The modern Defender drives and handles like a big car with an unusually wide-reaching dual-purpose brief rather than like any remotely ‘sporty’ utility vehicle. But it handles tidily, intuitively and fairly precisely - and that’s true of any version of it, the 130 included. The car’s outright size will no doubt be the greatest and most persistent hurdle to its usability. It’s only just under two metres in overall height without any roof apparatus - but more importantly, at nearly 5.
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