The 2020 Land Rover Defender Is the Hottest SUV of the Year

This is the new

2020

Land Rover Defender and it's a big deal. The Defender is one of the most enduring and recognizable SUV brands on the planet. He has a large number of followers. This is the all-new model, totally redesigned, a complete reinvention of the Defender by comparison. to everything that was before and today I will review it before I talk about the new

defender

make sure to check out cars and bids which is a new online car auction website that I have created to be the ultimate marketplace for cars modern enthusiasts with daily cool car auctions like this one, my e63 amg pickup, which is for sale right now on cars and deals.

Right now we are offering $1,000 each to the first 50 car and deal sellers and $500 each to the next 50 sellers. and we also have low buyer rates, so if you're looking to buy or sell a modern enthusiast car from the 1980s to the

2020

s, visit cars and deals at carsandbids.com by clicking the link in the description below. I have borrowed this new

defender

. From Hoenn Motors Jaguar Land Rover Carlsbad, which is my local Land Rover dealership here in the San Diego area, Owen Land Rover has just officially started taking delivery of the new Defender that is arriving.

They currently have two and more new defenders are on their way to hoenn jaguar.

land

rover

, so let's talk about the defender, the original defender traces its lineage to the original

land

rover

that came out in the 1940s, of course it was updated and perfected over the

year

s, but the same basic principle always remained: It was a simple four-wheel drive all-terrain vehicle that could handle tough conditions, from agricultural use to off-road use, rough roads in Africa or traversing the Australian outback, but with changes in safety and emissions regulations, the The old Defender no longer made sense in the modern world, so Land Rover went back to the drawing board to create this new Defender completely reinvented from the ground up.

It is offered in two versions: there is a four-door model called the 110 and there is a version of two-door called the 90. Here in North America you have a choice between two engines, the base engine is a turbo four-cylinder with about 300 horsepower or you can upgrade to this, the turbo six-cylinder, which now has about 400 horsepower. strength despite its off-road heritage and the Land Rover brand's premium price for the new Defender. It's not out of control, a base model starts around 50,000, although this one is equipped up to around 75,000 with options and today I'm going to review it first, take you on a tour and show you everything. of the interesting quirks and features of the long-awaited new Defender, then I'll take it out on the road and drive it and then give it an excellent rating.

Well, I'm going to start with the quirks and features of the New Defender on the outside and I want to talk about some design and styling elements starting with this box. There's been a lot of talk about the fact that there's a body-colored square on the side of the car. Two reasons it's there: one is to cover it. the pillar that would be here but of course it's bigger than that pillar so it also has a style look to it. Land Rover thinks a floating square on the side of the car looks cool, as you can see on the inside of the square there is actually a small storage compartment with a small strap so you can put a water bottle inside. of the exterior square of its body color and then another notable element also in this vicinity is difficult to make out with the black painted roof, but this is a window looking.

Land Rover calls it a safari window and you can see inside, it looks great, it brings new light into the cabin and the theory is that when you're on safari you can use the window to look outside and see interesting things. The animals in the treetops I'm not sure anyone would use it that way but the window is there anyway and next we need to talk about the style of the front end and specifically the headlights that you can see when the lights gears are on. You have circles up here that imitate. the look of the old defender that always had big circular headlights, but you also have two small square light boxes on the side of the main circle and you can see when the turn signal comes on, they fit perfectly inside those boxes so you have the big circle on The middle and small boxes on the side all contribute to a fresh and distinctive look compared to other Land Rover models, but the rear lighting on the new Defender is much more unusual than the front lighting which can be seen on both sides.

At the back you have two sets of taillight squares, there is a larger set of squares with the squares on top of each other and a smaller set on the side that looks like a little baby taillight basically since I saw this on first time. I've been wondering how exactly that works with the brake lights and turn signals and I always assumed the larger one was the brake light and the smaller one was the turn signals, but not so you can see when the turn signals brake all come on. The big and small four on both sides light up as a brake light and when you turn on your turn signal guess what the four flash as a turn signal so they are both the brake light and the turn signal and they all light up as both. depending on which one you have a very unusual way of doing this now, as to why they have big lights and small lights, I was told that the small lights are supposed to pay homage to the old Land Rovers that had a kind of small circle. lights in the corner, this one instead has squares, but that's the theory on why they are there and now you know the strange way they operate and since we are talking about the outside of the new defender, let's talk about style, I'll give you my opinion, I love it.

Land Rover has made some very nice cars lately, but that seemed like a problem to me. The defender is not supposed to be beautiful, he is supposed to be square, muscular and muscular, and I thought they would do that. They ruined it by adapting another Land Rover design language to the defender, but they didn't, this is square, it has flared fenders, it has the look of a defender just brought into the modern era, no it doesn't have the boxy charm of the old one, but it never was with the emissions regulations and the pedestrian safety regulations and the crash regulations, but they came as close as they could for a modern vehicle and I think they nailed it and I'm really impressed with the styling and the look of the new defender and since I'm on the outside, another unusual element with the new defender is on the roof.

You can see this strange shark fin. Now some modern cars have this usually for satellite radio reception, but this one has a camera. You might be thinking what is that, where is the rear view camera the answer is no, you can see above the license plate, there is another camera which is the rear view camera, so what exactly is this camera on this shark fin mounted ceiling? Ah, you see that camera. It's one of the new defender's tricks because it's for the rearview mirror, look at this, look at this in the rearview mirror, you look back and you can see a lot of things, headrest, there's a spare tire mounted on the back, so visibility is Not great but flip this little switch and it all disappears because now you are looking at the view from that camera mounted on that shark fin and the advantage here is that when you look in the rear view mirror you simply have a clear view behind you .

From seeing the seats, headrests, spare tire and the interior of the vehicle, now you only see what's behind you, it's a brilliant safety feature. Land Rover is adding it to more cars and other manufacturers are doing it too, and I think all new cars will have it before long, but there is still a way. There is more to discuss in this interior than that mirror and I want to start with the most obvious thing that you notice the moment you get in and that would be the durability of this interior, everything is durable, it is not luxurious like other Land Rover models that I will give.

To see some examples, this is the first edition Defender with all the features. The idea is that you will pay more to have the first one, so it has leather seats, but you can see that the leather seats are upholstered with this type of fabric surrounding them. Very durable material, not beautiful leather like you might expect from a luxury SUV, and it goes above and beyond on the door panels. Leatherless, on the other hand, has this very durable, almost rubbery-feeling material that feels like it will never break or disintegrate. on the dashboard you have the same durable material on top that runs across the entire dashboard and below the center screen the same material appears again, not a beautiful thin leather with stitching, but a durable material suitable for all terrain and look at the material around.

The center controls look like plastic, but they are actually rubber, you can touch them clearly, it feels like rubber, that's what it is another more durable material. This also applies to the top of the dashboard, it looks like plastic, but when you touch it, you can tell. Clearly, again, rubber is a more durable material and rubber is used on basically all flat surfaces of this vehicle. You can see this storage compartment on the bottom, not plastic but rubber, and the same in this passenger side storage compartment, it's all rubber. Here that's partly because rubber is more durable, it'll last longer, but it's also because you can stick things on there, pens or whatever, and then when you drive, it won't roll all over the place as you drive off the road. road. or crawling on rocks, so things will stay where you put them with rubber surfaces, so that's another good example of the differences in interior materials between the new Defender and other luxury Land Rovers.

The cup holder cover is this piece of rubber that just arrived. Normally it's a fancy case that comes off very smoothly but not on this thing, it's rubber and you can just take it off and throw it somewhere if you want and you might be wondering about the area behind the center screen, yes it is . It's empty there for storage, the screen doesn't go all the way to the dash so you can put things back in there if you want to hide them or get them out of the way, and of course the bottom of that storage area is rubber again. to make sure things don't roll around, but it's not just the materials that make everything look different from a normal luxury Land Rover, there are also styling and design options, such as the exposed screws in the door panel that they would never do.

Do this in a Range Rover, but it makes more sense in the rugged, utilitarian Defender. Same thing, just with the general look. Everything here has a boxy, rugged look, there's no attempt at curves or flowing lines like you might find in a more traditional luxury vehicle. On the passenger side, they further emphasize its off-road capability. On the one hand, you have a handhold that you can stick your hands in here when you're in difficult off-road situations so you don't fly away, and of course it says defender. in the dash area which makes it look cool and then reminds you of the special vehicle you're in and then moving on to some of the controls here I want to start with the center console which is quite unusual compared to others places.

Rover models because the new Defender offers a three-person front bench seat, meaning they had to put all the controls in the dash area so there could be leg room for the center passenger if you order that three-person bench. So that leads to some interesting things here, like this strange shifter that looks like a small elbow but works like a traditional shifter on most other modern vehicles, of course you also have the center controls here and these two dials in the center that work like they do on other land rover models in their natural state, just turn them and you can change the climate control temperature, no surprise, or if you press the dial you can turn on the heated seat, You can see that he turns it to the right. a red arrow that turns on the heated seat, interestingly there is also a blue arrow if you turn it to the left, but this car doesn't have cooled seats, it just has that blue arrow to let you know that you could have had heated seats.

I guess, but those dials in the center have more functions than just that, there is a button in the center and if you press the bottom, the dial on the right suddenly becomes the fan speed dial and you can turn it to adjust the fan speed, press it again. and it's the temperature dial again, so it has multiple functions. If you press the center button at the top, the dial on the left now controls your drive mode or your drive program as Land Rover calls it and you can switch between all the different off-road programs using this dial which makes a fewmoments was the climate control dial, so it's a neat way to integrate multiple functions into just two dials, allowing you to clean up the center control area because you don't need individual controls for all that stuff now as for the buttons in this area on the left most of the buttons control various driving functions and mainly off road functions the two largest buttons will raise or lower the new defender because they all come with air suspension and it goes up very fast, look at this, this is not accelerated and you can see it's going up very quickly, so if you find something that needs cleaning, you don't have to sit there and wait for the suspension to go up. it does this instantly and there are several different heights so you can add more ground clearance if you're in an off-roader, as for the rest of the buttons in this area on the right, these are pretty much just the climate controls, all the usual ones.

There is nothing unusual or unexpected here now, to the right of all these buttons you have the stereo volume dial and the button that turns the radio on and off which is on the passenger side because the driver has his own controls on the steering wheel yNext, speaking of steering wheel controls, the new Defender has electronic buttons on the steering wheel like other Land Rover models. Now I've shown you how these buttons work on several different Land Rovers, the Velar. I recently reviewed the evoke, but the essentials. The buttons can adapt to whatever menu you're in on the gauge cluster display so you can see the buttons display actually change depending on which menu you're currently viewing, which is a pretty cool trick now that Other Land Rover models have this address. wheel buttons with a sort of black piano finish, but on the new defender they are plastic so they don't look as pretty, but they will be more durable and will show a little less fingerprints when you actually use them and then another interesting element up here, as you can see this defender has a huge sunroof, a giant panoramic roof, like many modern SUVs it has an unusual element, although it doesn't open very much, you can only open it as far as a sunroof can open normal.

As you can see, this is the maximum opening, so you can't get that huge, almost convertible style feel, and next there is an interesting touch on the driver's side inner door panel. I look down and there's something plastic-like. that sticks out, you might wonder what it does right if you close the door, that plastic thing pushes against the hood release and then you can't pull the hood release and open it. I guess the idea here is to stick that in there. it's absolutely safe that you don't accidentally open the hood while driving, that's why that little wart is on the door and finally, another thing that I noticed here, something that I love is the large number of chargers, okay, check this out.

In the center you have USB, then you have USB, then you have a standard car charger outlet, in the dash you have another USB outlet and in the center console you have a wireless charging system where you can place your phone and it starts charging. There are plenty of different charging options on the front of the new Defender, which is nice if you're driving far from civilization and want to make sure your devices are working. Next we move on to the technology, the central screen where there is a lot to talk about, including some really interesting off-road features, one of my favorites.

I've seen a feature called wading detection. Watch this in wading detection mode. The car will measure the depth of the water you have. There are sensors that can do this and will warn you if the water is getting too deep for you to continue, no more off-roading with a tape measure and getting out when you see a giant water hole and getting in to see. how deep the car is will measure it for you and check this when you raise the suspension it actually increases the depth of water you can afford. You can see that the amount is increasing because the car is now higher and therefore can pass more water, which is a very cool feature, you have to admit and the next cool feature here is something called low traction launch, if you're into a muddy situation with very little traction you just can't move forward, you turn this on and the car will start itself or start going very slowly in a way that would be difficult for you to do, it will do it automatically to make sure you don't get stuck and continue and , then another cool tech feature on the screen is the camera system switches to reverse and of course you get a backup camera and a 360 top down camera which are pretty common nowadays but you also get this cool car monitoring system that will show you a picture from outside the car with the car I love these cameras, more car manufacturers are starting to have them and it's good to see it on the new defender, it makes parking really useful especially in a stressful situation and then another interesting item in the infotainment system there is an item marked vehicle dimensions and you can click on it and it will give you the dimensions of your vehicle.

I mentioned this in my review of the Range Rover Velar. I still find it very strange. Shows exactly how tall you are. That's all interesting when you raise the suspension, you can see it actually changes the dimensions to tell you, okay, this is your height now, so if you're worried about clearing a low ceiling in a parking lot, you can get in there and see how high It is your vehicle. Mainly current state, although what I want to say about this central screen is that it is really impressive, it is not the largest screen in the industry, not even close, but it is very intuitive to use, very easy, with good screens and tremendously sensitive to touch, just like a smartphone and a big difference from other Land Rover models where you have to press the screen quite hard to be absolutely sure that's what you want to do.

Instead, it works like the smartphones we're all used to, and it works very well. I'm very impressed with this infotainment system and next we move on to the back seat of the new defender and there's a lot to discuss back here on the one hand again it's very utilitarian just look at the floor now obviously you can get carpet mats to place here if you want, but many cars have a built-in carpet and then you put the carpet mats on top of that, it's not the new defender, this is plastic and rubber, this is something that is designed to get you dirty and wet When you're in an SUV, you can tell this isn't a G-Wagon, it's not an ultra-luxury SUV, this car is built for more utilitarian off-road purposes.

Now one thing that really impresses me here is how good the interior space is in the back seats, there's a lot of room back here, of course I was hoping there would be a lot of headroom because this is a boxy car and that's one of the benefits and, in fact, there are inches between my head. and the roof, but it's not just that I also have a lot of legroom, the passenger seat is where a normal adult would sit and I have several inches of my knees, this is a spacious back seat in this car, more than what I expected it since it's not that big of an SUV.

Plus, back here, mimicking the front, there are an incredible amount of places where you can load things. In the middle, you have on the outside two normal car chargers and then on the inside you have two USB ports, so that's four. The charger sockets are there, but on the back of the front seats, slide this little door and you have another USB charger on either side. This is, of course, for an iPad or a tablet. It also has a small area where you can place a stand and then. you plug it into that charger and your kids can watch it on a stand instead of on their lap, but either way, there's a ton of charging possibilities in the second row and then another feature I really like about the new defender and many new things. land rovers is the door mounted blind spot monitor.

This little pad here is a blind spot monitor and when you start to open the door it tells you if something is coming up behind you, like a cyclist, and it will warn you and that way you won't win. In order not to accidentally open the door to a cyclist or traffic and hurt them or damage your car, it is a very good idea to integrate it into the front and rear doors of the new defender and more cars should have it and next, here is another cool feature, the You can See the rear seat climate controls, you turn the dial to change the temperature and the center dial you can change the fan speed.

The strange thing is that there is only one rear climate zone back here, although there are two rear climate temperature dials, so when you turn they are always at the same temperature and you can't make them be different temperatures, in fact the timing button is grayed out back here, this is the button you would press to unsynchronize the dials allow you to switch to different temperatures that don't If you have that option, you have two separate dials that will always have the exact same function, but I guess one is a little closer to the seat on the right and the other is the seat available for second row passengers and you can look out and see everything again. the special animals in the trees while you are on safari and then another interesting thing about the back seat is that there is a third row, yes that's right this is not a huge suv but it is big enough for Land Rover decided to give you third row seating and access to the third row is surprisingly easy thanks to a very conveniently designed second row.

Alright, look at this. You want to move the second row forward. There is a small lever underneath. Simply pull the lever. Slide the seat forward. Very simple. You want to put the. second row seat down there is a small lever on the side just pull the lever the seat folds down again very easily and if you want to fold the backrest forward and slide the seat forward in one go to have access to the third row, just pull this little one hooks on the side of the seat and it does it all in one motion, a zipper is very easy and then you have a way to get into the third row, but that doesn't make it easy because, like I said, this is not a very large vehicle. have three rows of seats, but it's back there, so now I'm going to do my best to climb inside, here it goes well, I basically came in by lunging back here, but I'm inside and I have to tell you this is about the seat The tightest third row I have ever been in in any vehicle.

I just remember that the Mercedes GLB had a narrower third row, but it is here for very small children, never for adults under any circumstances, and the third row is not just because there is nowhere. Putting your legs in is also a little claustrophobic because of that body colored box I showed you on the outside, on the inside it takes away a lot of the window back here and makes it feel even smaller than it is, but at least it does. you understand. The small storage area with the strap isn't really much of a trade-off, that being said it's worth noting that the safari windows help here, you have more safari windows in the third row than the second row, it's a little larger and it It makes you feel a little lighter and airier, which helps combat the feeling of claustrophobia.

Also, I'm surprised to report that for such a small afterthought that will rarely be used, the third row has some pretty good amenities back here - for one, it has climate. control although you can't change the temperature, that's done at the front, but you can adjust the speed of the fan and it comes out through the vents and keeps you cool or warm. You also have cupholders back here, there's a cupholder on each side, which will be nice. for the back seat passengers for the kids riding in the back and it has charging points back here you can see on the side you lift this up you can plug something in the same way on the other side so you have two separate chargers and two cup holders , which is nice and practical considering how small this third row is and then we move on to the cargo area where there are more interesting things to report, for one, the cargo area door opens to the side like this, not up because the spare tire is on top and it would be too heavy to lift the tailgate so now it opens to the side, unfortunately it opens to the wrong side because here in North America it opens to what is normally the side of the sidewalk, like this What if you are carrying things from the sidewalk.

It makes it harder to do so, but this is a British car and this is the right way to open the door to the British market. Some car manufacturers create two separate rear ends depending on whether it is left-hand drive or right-hand drive. -Country withhand wheel, but that's not the case here, but anyway, going back to the cargo area, you fold down the seats here and you can see that once again the Land Rover has used a tremendously durable material, there is no carpet to line it . thing or any type of leather instead, you have this plastic thing with this pattern meant to throw muddy boots or a wet wetsuit or whatever you want to do when you go off road or live your active lifestyle from land rover now.

What I find especially interesting here is that when you have the third row seats folded you still have access to all the things in the third row, for example, those cup holders were not part of the seats, but are anchored to the side of the area of cargo, so that when you have the seats folded you can still use them if you are going very close, which could be useful. The same goes for the climate controls, you still have easy access to the fan dial back here, so if, for example, you put a dog in the back you can just turn up the fan, the climate controls and your dog will stay cool or warm and there's tons of cargo back here, even beyond those little charging ports I showed you on the sides of the seats.

You also have another charging port on the back. down on the side of the cargo area and on the other side you have a household style outlet back here, so you're following your defender, you can plug in your toaster, then there's a couple of other notable items back here, one that you can pick up o Lower the suspension from back here, these little buttons on the side of the cargo area, you can press them and then lower the vehicle if, for example, you're loading something very heavy in the cargo area and you just can't lift it high.

Just press that button and the car lowers so it's easier to load, also on the inside of the giant tailgate you have the word defender written on it which is cool and you have a little storage pocket here for little things that I don't want to roll around In the cargo area, another interesting element here is the cargo cover, unfortunately you don't have a traditional roll-up cover like you have in any other car, instead there are six separate hooks that you have to use to hook it into place, which is just tedious. I think Land Rover's thinking is that those roll-up cargo covers are really cumbersome and hard to take off, but the problem is that this way it's harder to put it back on and I would rather have that roll-up cover than this weird hook. which you'll be playing with for a while and finally we move under the hood and as I mentioned, this one has a turbocharged six-cylinder with about 400 horsepower, that's the optional engine, the standard base engine.

It's a turbo four with about 300 horsepower, now it seems like it would be adequate and maybe this one is muscular, but I guess we'll find out when I drive it. Other markets also have a diesel option, but not in North America here in the United States. Our only options right now are the turbo 4 or turbo 6. Those are the quirks and features of the new 2020 Land Rover Defender. Now it's time to take it out on the road and see how well the new Defender drives. I've been so excited to do this since the old one went away and they said there would be a new one and I've been waiting and waiting, it's been

year

s, the first thing you notice when you get behind the wheel is definitely cool. driving position uh you sit tall you're tall it doesn't feel like a low crossover this is not a mazda cx-5 this is not a honda crv people always used to say that the old range rover classics had a king of the driving position in road, that's how it feels.

I personally also really like the interior. You don't get those high-end luxury materials like you do in a Range Rover or G Wagon, but you also get the price reduction and, frankly, the Landover. The argument would be that that is not the purpose of the Defender. The Defender is not a G-wagon. It is not a luxury car. You know, it's a suburban car. It's designed for real use and they clearly built it with that thought in mind. Now this is the six-cylinder don. I still don't have access to a four-cylinder engine. It seems to me that 300 horsepower should be enough, but this one has 400.

Okay, I have a flat there, yeah, pretty good, very smooth, it's not exceptionally fast, but it feels very smooth and it's very, I mean, of Zero to 60 is five and something with the 400 horsepower engine, obviously that's a very reasonable time after you've turned it down, I will say maybe the four cylinder will be a little underpowered, maybe a little slow, but I suspect that so it will be. adequate while this is a little more than adequate neither is probably very fast I really love the driving position I love sitting here and I really like the substantial feel of this car that was what I was most nervous about was if it would it would feel substantial if you get in a G truck and you really feel like you're playing in the dirt, like you can roll anything like you're tough and that's what people want from an off-roader and I was very nervous if Land Rover, you know what The Evoque intentionally doesn't have that feel, it's not supposed to, but I was really nervous about Land Rover ruining that part and it doesn't seem like this thing has anything as substantial planted in it as I do.

I could roll over that curb feeling and I like another thing that surprises and impresses me about this car: it's smooth, it feels very smooth. I'm not exactly sure about the wheel size on this particular 20 21 something like that um but it feels good it's night and day compared to my old defender. I was disappointed with the four cylinder and some Land Rover models, uh, because it doesn't feel very smooth, the acceleration you apply and it's a little hesitant and then you get a lot more power, this doesn't have that problem, it really feels like a good engine smooth with a kind of solid reliable power, no matter where your foot is on the accelerator, one interesting thing I will say, the car feels bigger than I expected, if you look at the dimensions on paper it's not that big of a vehicle , it's actually a midsize, it feels bigger than it is, where some crossovers feel smaller visibility wise, it's a complete mess in the back and I have to tell you that if you're going to buy one of these, you should get the clear view mirror because you look back and you have the three headrests and then the spare tire and you can't really see anything and I think the clear view mirror is available as a standalone option so anything else you get you can get it and it's worth it because you flip a switch and suddenly the world is clear again in general, although the visibility is really strong, one of the great benefits of a square vehicle in In addition to headroom, you can see in everywhere, that's one of the things I like the most.

The velor is great but it's a little tapered at the rear and you don't have that full range visibility, not so you have huge mirrors on this. They look like the mirrors of the old defender and you can see everything around you in general. I must say this is better than I expected. I liked how it looked. I liked the interior. I liked the options, but I was worried if it would work. He was going to feel a little small and weak. I was really very nervous about it. I've been scared of it for two years and as I drive it today I can tell you it doesn't have one. it feels weak, it feels substantial, it feels like an off-roader should, but this is a good car and a good engine and in my opinion, I really mean it's a good defender and that's the new 2020 Land Rover Defender.

I love my former defender. but it's loud, harsh, crashy and a disaster to drive and frankly not a realistic option for about 99.9% of people. The new Defender maintains some of the charm of the previous model with the boxy styling and off-road capability. Durable interior but refines it for the modern era Purists were never going to like this new Defender no matter what Land Rover did with it, but purists make up an incredibly small part of the population that buys new cars for the rest of them. we, well, we I'm glad there's a defender back in the Land Rover line-up and now it's time to give the new defender a Doug rating starting with the weekend categories and style.

I really like the look of the new defender, although I'm aware that purists think it's too modern. or modern or whatever, I'm sensitive to that so I just give it a six out of ten acceleration with the six cylinder from zero to 60 in 5.3 seconds, so it gets a 5 out of 10. Handling is average For a car like this it's not on par with mid-size SUVs like the BMW X5, so it gets a 4 out of 10. The fun factor is better than most SUVs due to its off-pavement capabilities. and it gets a 6 out of 10. finally cool factor and this is pretty good right now, being the

hottest

new thing and the resurgence of the defender, it gets a 6 out of 10 for a total weekend score of 27 out of 50.

Next up are the daily categories and features. It's well equipped, but misses out on some modern high-tech stuff, like basically any level of autonomous driving beyond adaptive cruise control, and gets a 7 out of 10. Comfort is impressive considering its capabilities and fairly tough driving heritage with the old defender, and it gets a 7 out of 10. The quality is fine, the interior is fine for what it is, but the reliability of the Land Rover is always a fear and it gets a six out of ten. Practicality is good, with a huge cargo area, spacious seats and an available third row.

It's small and ultimately gets a nine out of ten value and is quite good, a very desirable revived brand with a starting price of around $50k. I was worried that it would be twice as much that I would get a 7 out of 10 for a total. daily score of 36 out of 50. Doug's aggregate score is 63 out of 100, which puts him here against some relatively close competitors and other new Land Rovers. I like the new Defender more than I expected and think it could be great as a family car or off-roader and, despite purists' hatred for the lack of solid axles or body-on-frame, it is very capable off-road and polite in road to attract a wide spectrum of buyers.