“The Most Off-Road Capable,” Says Land Rover Of The New Defender

Earlier this year, first spy shots of the next-generation Land Rover Defender surfaced on the web, and suddenly the internet was abuzz with speculations about its off-road capability. The Land Rover Defender is less of a car and more of an institution due to its go-anywhere ability.

Dispelling all doubts whether the new Defender is going to live up to its name, more spy shots have landed showing the SUV in the thick of things. The British firm has remained unshakeably secretive about the entire project. No concrete details of the Defender are yet available, except for what we can surmise from the photos.

Land Rover did confirm that it has begun testing the new model throughout North America earlier in December. The SUV is being driven in extreme climate with temperatures ranging from -40 to 48 degrees Celsius. What’s more, Land Rover is also taking the prototypes above 13,000ft in altitude on serious off-road excursions. Whatever doubts there must be about how the Defender will fare over extreme terrain and in harsh weather must now be left behind.

To back up its announcement of the testing of its most off-road capable vehicle ever, Land Rover has itself released the images of camouflaged prototypes cutting through terrain like a hot knife through butter. The camouflage wrap has the now trending #BEST4x4xFAR graphic on it, along with a score of other names recounting famed places, the haunts of extreme off-road enthusiasts. Moab, Death Valley, the Rockies- there are a lot of names on it. Could Land Rover be thinking of testing the new Defender over these places too? Or is it doing that already?

This time, more details make themselves clear in the spy shots. The prototype in the photos is a five-door as against the first batch of spyshots in which it is a three-door. This means that Solihull is working on a lot many body types for its newest SUV, like the original Defender which has a sub-culture of more than 30 body types.

The company has not announced the Defender’s unveiling date yet, much less the launch date. However, it has given a hazy timeline, saying we can look forward to a launch in 2020.