From the very start, the all-new Land Rover Defender was given an impossible mission. Enthusiasts needed a vehicle that could conquer off-road trails as well as any Jeep or Land Cruiser; purists demanded an SUV that had the boxy design and simple construction that made the original Defender so iconic; suburbanites craved a vehicle that was easy to drive around town and on the open road; the well-heeled wanted something nearly as luxurious inside as the Range Rovers they hold so dear, if not quite so ostentatious.
Given all those forces pulling the project in different directions, it was inevitable that some groups would be disappointed. And considering that the rabid off-road fanbois who wanted a slavish recreation of a car that was past its sell-by date 25 years ago were likely the smallest potential audience out of all of them, the carmaker chose the path that would appeal least to them: to create a Defender with a modern design and modern comfort and convenience features that could still conquer terrain like its predecessor, even if you’d never confuse the two at a stoplight.
To give us our first taste of the new Defender, Land Rover offered us a chance to drive in a wide variety of terrain: the 85-plus-mph Albanybahn of the New York Thruway, the winding two-lane back roads of upstate New York, and not one but two off-road excursions: the Land Rover Experience off-road driving course in Manchester, Vermont, and a gnarly off-road trail up and down the slopes of nearby Mount Equinox. After two days in the saddle…we had some thoughts.
The new Land Rover Defender’s design takes some getting used to
Will Sabel CourtneyLand Rover design boss Gerry McGovern made no secret of the fact that he had no interest in doing a retro-styled Defender when we spoke with him at last year’s L.A. Auto Show. Still, for those of us who find boxy old off-roaders appealing to the eye, it’s hard not to feel a little like an opportunity was missed with this new Landie. (Especially now that the new Bronco and Bronco Sport have joined the Mercedes-Benz G-Class and the Jeep Wrangler in showing how classic SUV designs can be updated for modern audiences while maintaining clearer visual ties to their heritage.)
Ever car has something of a face — thanks, pareidolia — the squared-off tops of the headlight enclosures, wide low-mounted airflow aperture and different colors of the front give the Defender an almost cartoonish look, as though it were a cheerful Thomas the Tank Engine character brought to life. The rear angle also prompts the occasional double take, possessed as it is of twin vertical stripes that connect the blacked-out D-pillars and darkened rear glass with the black elements of the bumper; while it (and the stacked tail lamps) makes the rear look more narrow than it is, it often causes the eye to stare at it longer than usual in order to make sense of the design. Bold, yes; simple, hardly.
