Land Rover Defender Octa review: driving the all-terrain action hero
Ever since 1948, Land Rovers have been clambering over rocks, wading across rivers and squelching through muddy ruts. The new Defender Octa is different. This steroidal SUV wasn’t born for ambling along green lanes; it leaps and bounds across rough ground like a rally-raid car. In 77 years, there has never been a Land Rover like it.
Developed by JLR’s Special Vehicle Operations (SVO) division, this is nothing less than the ultimate Defender. For £145,300, you get a 635hp twin-turbo V8, adaptive hydraulic suspension, enlarged Brembo brakes and three different tyre options. There’s also an all-guns-blazing Octa mode for doing your best impression of a Dakar driver.
We have seen super SUVs before, of course, but nothing that rivals the Octa for sheer breadth of capability. You might argue that only a small percentage of owners will drive this car anywhere near its limits, particularly in the UK – and you’d be right. But the bombastic Defender Octa rides roughshod over dull logic. It’s impossible not to enjoy it.
Rough and ready
To the Scottish Borders, then, where Land Rover has mapped out a route on rollicking moorland roads, plus some off-piste challenges that even its regular Defender 110 support vehicles can’t complete. We’ll conclude the day on a special ‘Octa Stage’, driving flat-out on trails that would have a Lamborghini Urus begging for mercy.
Standing 28mm taller than standard, with stretched wheelarches covering a wider track, the Octa bristles with mechanical menace. Yet it stops short of the garish excesses seen on modified Defenders from Kahn, Urban, et al. For a car in this class, it’s actually quite subtle.
My test Octa was a £160,800 Edition One, the sold-out launch special offered in unique Faroe Green or Carpathian Grey, with matte paint protection film, bronze brake calipers and ‘chopped carbon fibre’ interior trim. The latter looks weirdly like a kitchen worktop – and seems very much a token gesture in a vehicle weighing 2.5 tonnes.
Inside the Defender Octa
Indeed, the Octa doesn’t scrimp on creature comforts. Its shapely and very accommodating ‘Body and Soul’ seats offer six different massage programmes, plus vibro-acoustic tech developed with Coventry University that can wobble your thighs in time to music. Oo-er. There’s also a refrigerated storage box, plenty of robust, rubberised plastics and a vast amount of space for passengers and cargo. The ‘Octa’ name, incidentally, comes from the octahedral shape of a diamond, symbolising ‘extreme toughness and luxury’. So now you know.
Prod the start button and the V8 coughs politely into life; there’s no G 63 AMG-style Sturm und Drang here. Its 4.4-litre engine is shared with the latest BMW M5, albeit without that car’s plug-in hybrid tech, and develops 553lb ft of torque from just 1,800rpm: good for 0-62mph in 4.4 seconds. Fuel economy? Best not to ask, but after a full day of driving I’d averaged a gluttonous 12.9mpg. The official figure is 21.0mpg.
About those tyre choices: 22-inch alloys with Michelin all-season rubber are standard, but buyers can opt for 20-inch rally-inspired rims. These come wrapped in either mid-spec BF Goodrich Trail Terrain tyres or the full-house Goodyear Duratrac all-terrains, as worn by Land Rover’s press fleet. Thus equipped, the Octa is electronically limited to 100mph, although it will reach Vmax as readily on sodden Scottish mud as on asphalt.
Engage Octa mode
Key to such blistering cross-country pace are a quicker steering ratio, beefed-up Brembo brakes and advanced ‘6D Dynamics’ air suspension – also seen on the Range Rover Sport SV. Instead of anti-roll bars, this uses hydraulically interlinked triple-valve dampers to actively counteract pitch and roll, and enable much greater axle articulation when off-road. Anyone accustomed to the arcane, agricultural manners of a classic Defender will be utterly blown away.
It’s a lot of fun, too. Unfailingly composed, the Octa is impervious to potholes that would send shudders through most performance cars. Its combination of taut body control with blocky all-terrain tyres makes for a chassis that feels pleasingly malleable – and willing to go sideways if provoked (not difficult when you have 635hp under your right foot). Switching into Dynamic mode sharpens things up, amplifying the exhaust note from a muted rumble to an angry snarl.
After 100 or so road miles, it’s time to engage Octa mode and venture off-road. Our route starts on narrow, rocky tracks traversed by local farmers on quad bikes, then climbs into the hills, over cloying mud and slippery wet grass. For the final stretch, we drop down into a river that fully tests the Defender’s one-metre wading depth, following its course upstream as icy water laps just below the window line.
Maximum attack off-road
With its Terrain Response system managing 4WD traction, plus Ground View cameras to allow precise placement of the wheels, the Octa makes this kind of off-roading seem easy. What sets this flagship apart from any other Defender, though, is the final challenge of the day. It’s time to sign a disclaimer, pull on a crash helmet and attempt the Octa Stage.
“You’ll need to attack it, or we risk losing momentum and slipping backwards,” says my instructor, as we stop at the base of a steep, gravel-strewn slope. Duly noted. I blast away from the start line in a flurry of wheelspin, the big V8 bellowing as the Octa hurls itself skywards. Cresting the summit, I hit the brakes hard and slew sharp left, plunging into woodland on a deeply rutted trail through the trees.
Building confidence, I start to take a racing line through the corners, using the Defender’s abundant power to steer it on the throttle. Flinging up clods of earth as it lunges from one brutishly balletic slide to the next, it feels like a supersized Mk2 Escort carving through a forest stage. All we’re missing are a few hardy spectators in bobble hats.
Verdict: Land Rover Defender Octa
If you want to indulge in such gloriously OTT hooning, of course, it helps to own your own country estate. As some Octa buyers surely will. Nonetheless, like the rugged Lamborghini Huracan Sterrato or Porsche 911 Dakar, this Defender’s broader spread of talents also make it more rewarding to drive on the road – and give it an authenticity that other super SUVs lack. No, there really has never been a Land Rover like it.
Tim Pitt writes for Motoring Research
PRICE: £145,300
POWER: 635hp
0-62MPH: 4.4sec
TOP SPEED: 155mph
FUEL ECONOMY: 21.0mpg
CO2 EMISSIONS: 304g/km