Land Rover quotes a maximum climbing angle of 45 degrees. Not as rustic as a the Jeep Wrangler Rubicon nor as outlandish as Mercedes-Benz G-Wagen, and not as alpha-aggressive as either, Defender presents as something different: an amiable, nonbinary rescue droid, with lively LED eyes and a determined expression, as if biting its lip. Driving the Defender around town, I like what it seems to signify about Moi. JLR’s reliability issues are well known yet in every market people are lining up to buy Defenders, practically throwing money at their dealers, knowing what they might be in for. Here we confront one of life’s little mysteries. Honestly, JLR should just ditch the green oval badge and go with the CEL.
Whatever doubts I may have had about the authenticity of our tester were dispelled when the Check Engine Light came on. Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) products have some of the worst reliability scores in the industry and some Defenders already in-country have manifested serious problems. It’s easier to list what’s lovable about the Defender-hose-able floors, sharkskin-like cabin trim, optional frontbench seating-than to explain why, exactly, anyone would buy one, especially in the first year. Defender does get its own, new and prodigious platform, a bonded aluminum monocoque that feels like it could shake off a land mine. Defender shares engines and drivetrain components with the Discovery and other Jaguar Land Rover products the chassis comprises heavy-duty versions of JLR’s long-travel multi-link suspension, adaptive dampers, and ride-height adjustable pneumatic springs. Defender’s heritage cues-the blocky volumes, the upright windshield, chamfered horizontal shoulder lines, shoebox greenhouse, white-capped roof with alpine windows-have all been redrafted here in a kind of eight-bit, Minecraft modernity.
New Mini (circa 2000) was to Sir Alec Issigonis’ postwar tobacco tin. The new Defender is a triumph of industrial design, a big, beautiful box of postcolonial nostalgia, if not amnesia, evoking the primitive overlanders of empire while being nothing like them internally. “Defender’s issues are well known-yet in every market people are throwing money at dealers to get one.
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