Land Rover's new Defender, which was discontinued in 2016 and redesigned for its 2020 rollout, is an unusual proposition: A truly off-road-capable luxury vehicle with starkly modernist design principles.

While the original Defender's design seemed dictated by the limitations of 1980s sheet-metal-pressing capabilities, its off-road prowess earned it a cult following; would Defender lovers accept a radical redesign? Wasn't Defender's quirky utilitarian looks part of its charm?

Image: BoolaBoola2 at English Wikipedia

Auto designer Gerry McGovern, Jaguar Land Rover's Chief Creative Executive, and his design team have shown that they're willing to take risks. They worked on the new Defender's redesign for years, keeping all details secret. When pressed on what the new Defender would look like a few years ago, McGovern was mum, but confident:

The new Defender rolled out midyear in 2020 to rave reviews, and by 2021 was a confirmed sales hit, selling nearly as well as JLR's bestselling model, the Evoque. Anticipated sales of 5,000 units a month was closer to 7,000 per month (strong figures for a challenger brand), and probably would've been higher had the chip shortage not reduced supply.

This new Defender was introduced in two flavors, the stubby two-door Defender 90 (above) and the four-door Defender 110 (below).

Today the company announced they're rolling out a third, the stretched Defender 130, which adds the third row that consumers are demanding these days.

The Defender 130 has been lengthened by over a foot to deliver 2+3+3 seating, with each successive row raised for a stadium effect.

Despite lengthening the tail to provide more usable cargo space, the designers aren't jettisoning Defender's all-important off-road capabilities and have maintained a respectable departure angle; the 130 won't go where the 90 can, but drivers can still tackle a 28.5-degree slope.

Style-wise, the longer tail means "the surrounds for the rear LED lighting units have been re-engineered to maintain the three distinct lines that define Defender's side profile as they rise subtly towards the rear," the company writes.

Each row also gets their own vents; forget dual-zone climate control, the 130 has four-zone. For rear-seat passengers, side visibility is compromised by that crazy C-pillar, but a panoramic sunroof over the first and second rows, and an additional sunroof over the third row, is meant to provide an airier feeling.

The designers also added a techie feature to the tail: "From the tailgate, customers can simply lower the Defender's Electronic Air Suspension with buttons inside the load area to aid with loading items into the rear." That's a feature we want to see video of, but at press time the 130 announcement was fresh and no video assets were yet available. We'll update this entry when JLR starts rolling out clips.

Hi Rain! Had to chime in here, as I literally grew up with Land Rovers all over my back yard - they were surrogate playground equipment for me. Three-year-old Jason found it very easy to climb from the bumper to the hood to the roof in no time. Defender's body design wasn't dictated by 80's limitations but rather by the late 1940s. The Series I debuted in 1948. It's shape remained unchanged until the Series II in 1958. It got a little bigger and some corner radii were added here and there. The II became the IIa and later the III, but the body hardly changed at all. It was still like that once the III became the 110 and 90 (named for the wheelbase lengths) in the late 80s. It wasn't until 1990 that the first Rover with a "Defender" badge came about - mostly to differentiate it from the other models they had started producing - e.g. the Discovery and Range Rover lines. While I'm pleased to see Land Rover doing well and making new models, I'm disappointed with the current Defender. It's a fine vehicle, but I think it misses what I considered key attributes of a Series or Defender. Namely, it was the modular nature of the body. You could take off the roof and windows and doors and swap them with almost any other model with the same wheelbase. You could turn the "Estate Wagon" into the pickup. You could drive it without any doors or roof like every other Wrangler in the summer. You could swap the rear door for a tailgate. You can't do any of that with the new Defender. Truly, the new Defender is really a continuation of the LR3 and LR4, which were themselves a continuation of the Discovery and Discovery 2. In my mind, the new Defender is actually a Disco 5. Again, it's a fine vehicle - I just wish it had a different name, because I see the use of this name as a signal. It's a signal that they'll never again make a modular Lego-like SUV like the Series ever again. So, I'll either find my own old Rover to restore and update or I'll wait for used prices on the new Bronco to come down.

The Simpsons "ad" jingle for Canyonero is playing in a loop in my head right now... 

Not one I've worked on, but I've seen a few driving around Gaydon. Its massive! I agree with Jason though, it should have been a disco

I feel the Defender looks more like a Ford and the Bronco looks more like a Defender.

I’m a lapsed industrial designer. I was born in NYC and figured I’d die there, but a few years ago I abandoned New York to live on a farm in the countryside with my wife. We have six dogs.

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