Recently we had the opportunity to test drive a Land Rover Defender. Defenders are the younger siblings of the higher end Range Rover, LR3, and Freelander.

Defenders can generally be seen as military vehicles in Africa (Their version of the Hummer) or on safari’s.

During our initial site of the Defender, our thoughts were,” This thing looks cool!” The exterior is square with the ability to mount cages on top to carry extra luggage. The
interior is sparse, with it looking much like the look Honda was going for with their Element. The seats in the rear face the center of the vehicle, backing up against the side
walls of the truck. There was no carpeting in the truck, which makes it good for tracking in dirt. This is easy enough to clean out.

Defenders are 4 wd all the time. This doesn’t do much for gas mileage, an estimated 13 mpg.

Our test drive consisted of mainly muddy dirt roads. I have driven many four wheel drive vehicles before, but this was the most fun. The 8 cylinders powered through knee high mud. The shock absorbers were fantastic to be able to handle up to one foot ruts in the road. This baby was built for these horrible conditions. I have never driven a tank before, but this has to
be what it is like.

Driving on pavement was a little noisy with the large tires making quite a racquet.

Our overall opinion of the Defender is that if I were living in the Amazon, this would be my vehicle. But for everyday driving on nicely paved roads, stick with an American made SUV. They are much more comfortable with a much smaller price tag. Ebay has some used Defenders for sale at prices in the $30,000 range which are over 10 years old.