On the possibility of a Defender SV
We can’t quite believe it but the new-generation Land Rover Defender has been on sale for four years now. In that time the line-up of different styles you can get your hands on has expanded and contracted, with the 110 and 130 models joining V8-engined hot rods, while the commercial options quietly faded away.
But what about an SVO Defender? You only need to look at the popularity of the old Range Rover SVR and cars like the Mercedes-AMG G63 to know a big powerful Defender-shaped rival to the Merc would be an absolute printing press for JLR. It’s a variant I thought I’d see almost immediately but four years on, at the time of interviewing, we’d still heard or seen very little about anything of the sort.
As serendipity would have it, a couple of weeks after our trip to Portugal with Range Rover, a member of our team saw a very strange-looking camouflaged Defender while on a lunchtime walk around the circuit. It was wearing what looked like puffier arches, bead-locked wheels, chunky over-30-inch tyres and four very square, very aggressive exhausts.
Perhaps that explains why when we asked Hameedi whether we could expect an SVO-flavoured Defender any time soon, he was a little cagey. Even the little he did say pricked our ears and that Motor Circuit spot only confirmed for us that the conspicuous SV Defender-shaped hole in the market could soon be filled.
Perhaps that explains why when we asked Hameedi whether we could expect an SVO-flavoured Defender any time soon, he was a little cagey. Even the little he did say pricked our ears and that Motor Circuit spot only confirmed for us that the conspicuous SV Defender-shaped hole in the market could soon be filled.