It was one of the good days for Jaguar Land Rover’s test driver, who was recently spied testing a test mule of a high-performance Defender at the fearsome Nurburgring. Although the variant is still shrouded in mystery, some details suggest that this could be an off-road competitor for the likes of the Mercedes-AMG G 63.
The quad tailpipes, for instance, indicate
that this is the V8 version of the Defender, which is powered by a 5.0-liter,
518 hp engine that has been a big seller for the brand. The
widened wheel arches, meanwhile, suggest that this will be an even more
performance-oriented vehicle than the existing V8. The off-road-focused wheels
and the BF Goodrich all-terrain tires, on the other hand, hint that this might
be more dirt-oriented than tarmac-focused. If that’s the case, Land Rover could
employ the assistance of Bowler, which it recently bought to bring in-house, in
the creation of this high-performance Defender.
More recently, van der Sande said that the
reason for buying Bowler was to redress what it viewed as the brand being
underrepresented in the performance off-roading scene. It’s unclear what the
Defender variant will be called but the brand could opt for its go-to SVR title
or the SVX moniker, which it attached to a very off-road-ready Discovery
concept in 2017.
Whatever it’s called, this
high-performance SUV isn’t expected to go on sale for another couple of years,
meaning that it could even be based on an updated version of the Defender.
