The New Defender reaches Spain. The first New Defender reached Spain at the 13th Land Rover Party in Les Comes held on 26th September 2019, and a static unit was put on display at the party. It was reported in Europe that there were only three New Defenders, one of which came to Les Comes.

The X version of the New Defender was brought to the party – the top of the range – with the following features:

External features: bonnet and roof contrasted in black; convertible roof; external details in Starlight satin; brake calipers in orange, back towing lugs for recovery tasks

Rims and tyres: 20” 5 spoke “style 5098” in satin dark grey finish

Capacity: electronic pneumatic suspension with adaptive dynamics; active electronic differential; Terrain Response 2; Configurable Terrain Response.

Internal features: crossbeam in dark grey powder coat-brushed finish; premium interior lighting

Seats and internal finishes: heated front seats also cooled by 14-way electrical adjustment and Windsor grained leather driver memory with machine-cut premium tissue; manually operated 4-way headrests

Infotainment: 700 W Meridian™ Surround sound system, with 14 loudspeakers and subwoofer; digital screen for windscreen wipers (Head Up Display)

There were some controversial remarks made about the New Defender, although generally speaking opinions coincided in that this is a great car, with an excellent SUV – the best one currently on the market, if you want to look at it from that angle – but that it’s not a Defender. Not, at least, in terms of what we’ve so far tended to understand by a Defender.

We think that, to provide a different opinion, we’ll need to wait for versions that will be coming out between now and the end of the year, and throughout 2020. In our view and before giving such an opinion, we´ll hope to analyse more country-oriented, less urbanite versions, especially the version featuring conventional shock absorbing and even the commercial version advertised, so that we can then provide a definitive opinion.

Having said this, what we’ve seen so far leads us to confirm that this is indeed not a Defender. It’s another car, another model, it should have been given a different name, but not Defender. Land Rover already did this – it already changed the name of its models, with the Defender itself to be precise. When the Defender came out, replacing the series, it adopted the emblematic name we all know as Defender. I think they should have done the same on this occasion, to have changed the name.

Under the circumstances, the change between the old Defender – the genuine Defender – and the New Defender is a radical one - even more radical than the change there was between the series and the defender itself, which today, more than then, justifies a change of name.

Visitors voiced their opinions, among which was mine, stating that this was more about a Discovery than a Defender – the Discovery that never existed. Therefore, we might assume that the customer who is most inclined to buy the New Defender would be the current owner of a Discovery 3 or 4. Indeed, owners of these models who saw the New Defender would be those most ready to buy it – although all were shocked by the price. Someone commented that perhaps with the authorised dealer’s discount – and we’ll have to wait and see what margin they can handle and, where appropriate, what the owner could be given in part-exchange for their Discovery – they might look into getting one.

We agree, as we said, in that the New Defender is more of the Discovery than the latter ever was, than the Defender. And so, we wonder what the Discovery 5 or the New Discovery will be like – what type of market remains for it.

With this New Defender we believe that Land Rover itself has for the time robbed itself of the New Discovery market without managing to fill the gap left by the disappearance of the Defender. As I say, we hope to provide a definitive opinion once we’ve seen all the versions of this New Defender that are coming out – all we can say for now is that it’s not a Defender