New top model:
Long before it is to be presented to customers, Land Rover shows glimpses of its new Defender. With boasting V-eights, it has been named with diamond associations.
Feel free to call it lille-Rangeroversport-SV. The V8 engine is the same 4.4 liter unit that the Ranger Rover Sport SV has sourced from BMW. Whether it will produce 523 hp as in the “normal” version or on the north side of 600 as in the SV version, nothing has yet been said.
It also gets the 6D Dynamic suspension, which incredibly prevents the SV from both nodding and heeling movements – flat has suddenly taken on a whole new meaning in a car context.
Whether the chassis specifications will be the same as on the Range Rover, we do not know either, nor how the properties will be.
But the factory’s main point in talking about this new one is obviously to emphasize that now comes the toughest, most usable and most luxurious Defender ever, so we can safely count on using the top of the Range Rover pyramid to be an appropriate yardstick.
Modern luxury
Also when it comes to the concept of modern luxury – the direction the group is obviously going to move in, without losing sight of old characteristics.
Which in the Defender’s case is synonymous with off-road capability and traces back to the original Series 1 Land Rover from 1948.
That’s why we also hear about tough test rides in the biting Swedish cold, via the Nürburgring to the desert in Dubai and low gear over sharp crags in Moab – as it says. However, I have no idea whether it is Moab in Utah or in Jordan that the press release will impress us with.
The upper-class De Luxe character is emphasized by the fact that this top model is named Octa. The word is a mixture of Greek and Latin, but in both languages ​​it means eight and should be associated with diamonds.
Actually, octahedra is the most original shape of a diamond where it is developed 150-200 kilometers below the earth’s surface. Any other shape on the rough diamond means that it has been damaged during its development.
Finished towing
For Land Rover, the name probably means a shape of a ready-towed diamond, but we don’t know whether the diamond that is set into a sandblasted titanium plate on the dashboard has this grinding either.
In contrast, an Octo knob on the steering wheel is highlighted. If it means that the push of a single switch is enough to put all systems into Red Alert, at least it is obvious that performance is not overtaken by luxury and modernity.
And say what you want about JLR’s new direction. The figures for Q3 (through December, they are running different financial years) showed the best result since 2017. If these are the beginning signals of the modern luxury transformation, things may indicate that they are on the right track.
We have no idea what the new Octo will cost. In England, the Range Rover Sport SV is priced £85,000 more than the next person on that ladder. With such a premium on top of a Defender V8 Carpathian Edition that costs just under three million, an Octo can quickly start to approach its weight in diamonds.
At least if we are talking industrial-standard synthetic diamonds.
