HOW THE LAND ROVER DEFENDER OCTA REDEFINES OFF-ROAD PERFORMANCE
Behind the wheel, it doesn’t feel like an SUV. On this stretch of road, slaloming through the hills of the Scottish Borders, it feels anything but. The tyres grip the tarmac firmly. The suspension, rather than give in to the car’s mass and lean its way around a bend, holds you level like a well set-up track car. The engine, a 4.4-litre mild-hybrid, twin turbo V8, has a predatorial roar. It growls through the revs, demanding to be pushed further like all the best sports cars do.
But this is very much an SUV. Step out of it and, like departing an old-fashioned train, you’ll notice the large distance to the ground below. A regular Defender is hardly a small car. Its distinctive boxy proportions hint at its prior life as a working vehicle, favoured by the world’s militaries and farmers, who lug their trusty steeds along mud tracks and rolling hills filled with cattle. But the Octa is different.
There is no mistaking one in your rear view mirror, with its wide wheel arches, stealthy matte paint and rally-inspired wheels. These visual differences give it a mean, almost tactical appeal, but it’s what’s going on under the body work that is most impressive. For starters, it has 626bhp, making it the most powerful Defender of all time and one of JLR’s most aggressive cars to date. You might think that's a little unnecessary, and it is. The Defender 110 P425 X, the next fastest and most powerful Defender, has 419bhp, and it’s hardly a slouch. But the two hundred extra horses unlock a breadth of ability never previously seen with its bloodline.
As the Scottish roads open up, it is this power that gives the Octa its effortless ability. The Octa consumes the road with a comfort and ease normally reserved for grand tourers from Bentley and Aston Martin. It also has 553 lb ft of torque, making overtaking just as nonchalant.
A lot of the Octa’s inherent comfort can be attributed to its suspension. It’s got the same 6D Dynamics set up as the Range Rover Sport SV, its equally speedy stablemate. It’s a complex system designed to get rid of body roll, which keeps the car unnervingly level through corners. When in ‘Comfort Mode’ it also absorbs bumps and imperfections in a way not previously possible. Combine this with the huge 33-inch diameter, specially designed Goodyear Advanced All-Terrain tyres, and you feel as though you can plough over anything at speed, from potholes to dirt tracks and hillside lanes.
Up until recently, the Defender has been a fairly rudimentary machine. The car it’s derived from, the original Land Rover Series I, was designed for simplicity, with little to no amenities. Released in 1948, the Series I was inspired by the Willys Jeep used by the American military in WW2, albeit a slightly more tame, road-going version. Like the Willys, it had leaf-spring suspension, a design patented in 1804. Coil springs, which many new road cars still use today, weren’t introduced until the original Defender came out in 1983. This new hydraulic 6D system is another, significant upgrade.
Go off piste, and the Octa transforms into an oversized rally car. Stumble across a private rally stage, for instance – as I did in Scotland – and the car moves and slides in a way that belies its heft. It is these unlikely scenarios for which JLR’s engineers designed Octa Mode. A step beyond the already racy Dynamic Mode, it hunkers down the suspension, enables off-road launch control and specially calibrates the ABS for improved braking on loose surfaces. Combine all of this and you can throw it into hairpin bends, drift around longer ones and brake shockingly late. The Defender Octa will form the basis of JLR’s entry into 2026’s Dakar Rally, which makes a little more sense of these capabilities.
As for the slower, more traditional kind of off-roading, it makes light work of that too. The car’s clever computer can automatically detect what kind of surface you’re on, configuring its driving mode on the fly. Depending on where you are, it can switch between ‘Sand’, ‘Mud and Ruts’, ‘Grass/Gravel/Snow’ and ‘Rock Crawl’. These tweak the calibration of the engine, suspension and brakes, optimising the car’s ability for each. There is also a dedicated wading mode, which allows you to drive through water up to a meter deep.
All of this, from the quick runs to the rock crawls, can be done in total tranquility. The car’s newly designed leather seats are fitted with JLR’s Body and Soul technology, which vibrates alongside music in a way that’s designed to lower stress levels and improve concentration. It sounds odd, but after a stress-inducing attempt at river crossing, it helped to bring my heart rate back to baseline.
Naturally, this combination of performance and comfort comes at a cost. A £148,045 starting price, to be exact. That’s a fair old increase on the next-in-line £97,650 110 P425 X. As is the way with hyper exclusive luxury cars, the 1,000 examples reserved for the UK market in the first year of production are likely already sold. For the rest of us, we can look on with envy and perhaps a little admiration. It is reassuring, after all, to know that in an age of driverless taxis and increasingly homogenous design, these kinds of wild, enthusiast models are still being built.
The Men’s Health Verdict
A little over-engineered? Perhaps... But that’s all just part of the appeal. This tough, powerful, supremely comfortable off-roader is in a class of its own.
Liked That? Try These
2025-05-06T14:22:31Z
