Jonny's Best of Europe: Land Rover Defender

"Jonny Edge (@thejonnyedge)" (thejonnyedge)
03/13/2014 at 12:14 • Filed to: BEST OF EUROPE, LAND ROVER DEFENDER, TRUCK YEAH

The vehicle you are looking at in the picture above is the very first production Land Rover Defender. It was made in 1948. It is absolutely impossible for me to talk about the changes in designs, engines, and model variations that the Defender has undergone over the years as it would take me most of the day to write. This will instead be a short but (hopefully) informative piece for you all to read. Unlike the Defender, I like to keep things light!

The Defender is still made today, and it truly is an amazing vehicle. Strong doesn't seem to do it justice. Perhaps the most startling thing that I can tell you about them is that it is estimated that 70% of all 2 million Defenders ever produced are still on the road today. Sadly, production of the Defender will cease in December 2015 and this legendary British car will never be made again. Time has caught up with it, and despite consistent sales and the engineers best efforts to keep up with regulations, it simply can't go on.

As a British man living in a rural area of south-west England, seeing a Defender is an almost daily occurrence for me. They are immensely popular with farmers and it is not uncommon to see some running around that are thirty, maybe forty years old, sometimes even more. When you live in the UK and you grow up around these tough machines, some of which have been there your entire life, that 70% statistic is very much believable.

What is it like to drive? Well... it simply drives how it looks. Rough, sturdy, uncompromising, and unmoved. It's not comfortable, but it's not meant to be. Neither is it quick in any way. It can drive over any surface though and it will never let you down, given the right care and attention by mechanics, it will last longer than you will given the right care and attention by your Doctors. Isn't that an interesting thought! You feel like a tough guy when you drive this car, you feel like you can take on anything and everything but you don't feel like a road hog or some kind of intimidating monster like you do in some other 'trucks'. It's not huge, it's just absolutely rock solid and tough. I am absolutely certain that on British roads other drivers also give you a lot of respect when driving this brute.

So what comes next then? Well presumably the Defender name will live on in a modern platform and body with modern, safe shells and better engines. A Defender for the future might appear. Maybe a new legend will be born and this car might last just as long as this one did. Whatever happens, it won't just fade away. It will go on and on and on, and the Defenders could probably still be running long after we're dead. As long as we still have a decent supply of oil of course, but that's a debate for another time. All that matters for now is that we know they have the reliability to pull it off.

The Defender then is one of the greatest, perhaps the greatest of my Best of Europe series so far. It has outlived the Beetle and the 2CV, and has proven itself to have superior reliability. An army great, farmers workhorse, offroad racer, and a true British icon.

DISCUSSION (10)

RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht > Jonny Edge (@thejonnyedge)
03/13/2014 at 12:58

*cough cough*

If you want to be completely correct, the vehicle in question was simply the "Land-Rover" (note hyphen) until gaining the sub-name Series I, and did not gain the epithet Defender until ~1990, after it had evolved into modern form as the "Ninety" and "One-Ten". A better way to refer to the line as a whole might be "classic (small-c) Land Rover".

/owner of Series IIa and general classic LR fanatic.

Jonny Edge (@thejonnyedge) > RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht
03/13/2014 at 12:59

I did know this, but it's known amongst us all as the Defender.

It gained the 'Defender' name as a result of the Discovery coming along I believe?

90 and 110 being the wheelbase?

RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht > Jonny Edge (@thejonnyedge)
03/13/2014 at 13:03

Correct that the 90 and 110 are the nominal wheelbase, the Series 80, 86, 107, 88, and 109 were all nominal WB as well. It may be that the Series is more firmly recognized as a separate model in the US than in some other countries simply because it was discontinued in the US in official import in the 70s, and thus gave the population a long breathing time until the NAS Defender's release. Still, it remains a distinction enough that Defender applied to a SI 80 is awkward at best.

Jonny Edge (@thejonnyedge) > RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht
03/13/2014 at 13:07

Ah! Over here we simply call them all Defenders. Even the very old ones. We don't make distinctions between them much, purely because there are so many variations and versions of them.

The two photos in my article here are the perfect example. To the average British car enthusiast, these are both Defenders. Although to you, these are two totally different variations.

RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht > Jonny Edge (@thejonnyedge)
03/13/2014 at 13:18

We went straight from the SIII (still an indented radiator support, still a 4-cyl) to the coil-sprung V-8 with a flat breakfast profile, which by the time it received an official import had already gained the Defender sobriquet. We didn't experience the (limited in sales as they were) SIII V8 and Stage 1 intermediate faffing, so without those hybrids, the retroactive naming of the whole line "Defender" strikes the US user base more with "you what?" than the English one. I'll extend the Defender name backward to the Ninety and One-Ten under protest, but any further than the Stage One I tend to balk at due to the differences in underpinning. Chassis, axles, engine, forward body, suspension, trans, t-case, all a sharp to not-so-sharp break from the Series III, and when they get called "Defender" in the US and some other markets it's usually by the Landie uninclined. "Oh, look, an old... Defender or something". It makes the point of reference the modern vehicle, which irks because the car that saved Rover was simply the... "Land-Rover", nickname superfluous.

Blue 300 > Jonny Edge (@thejonnyedge)
03/13/2014 at 13:44

Kinja'd!!!

HUE is 166. Clever!

Jonny Edge (@thejonnyedge) > Blue 300
03/13/2014 at 14:04

VERY clever!

Jonny Edge (@thejonnyedge) > RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht
03/13/2014 at 16:09

So apart from the debate surrounding the naming of vehicle, what did you make of the article?

RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht > Jonny Edge (@thejonnyedge)
03/13/2014 at 16:16

It's a very good primer on the topic. Quite basic, but easier to read than, say, the Wikipedia article and highlights better the long tradition of the vehicle. It might be worth noting that while the original was smaller (Series I) and excluding special versions, the basic dimensions and proportions of the vehicle have been unchanged since 1958 . In that same time, virtually all its competitors have fluctuated in size or gone through changes more drastic in version. It's a tidbit that helps highlight the primitive and rugged nature.

waveridin1959 > Jonny Edge (@thejonnyedge)
03/14/2014 at 15:54

In the US, everyone calls them Jeeps. When I correct them, they make me feel like an ass. I don't bloody my knuckles on weekends for no reason.