All In One Ten

Alisdair Cusick meets René Hoyle, the man who has created every model of Defender in one special vehicle.

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SUCH are the options with Land Rovers, that out of the box it can be hard to choose which one best fits. A 90 is the best off-road, easiest to manoeuvre; 110 has the best ride and practicality, but who doesn't love the do-anything ruggedness of a 130? All this is before you think about modifying the top half to further fit your needs.

Solihull even has its own department to cater for such desires: Special Vehicle Operations (SVO). Today SVO are responsible for cars like the RangeRover Sport SVR, but originally they started in Lode Lane, doing off-menu modifications for customers. They were the factory go-to guys to fit roll cages, chassis extensions, extra axles, box bodies – you name it. They produced the Camel Trophy vehicles each year, once made an amphibious 90 for Cowes Week and created the World’s longest Land Rover in 1991 (a 170 inch wheelbase 6x6 with a 3.5 V8). You name it, the boys in Block 35 did it, or could do it.

But when choosing your Defender, what if you could have the best of everything: the manoeuvrability and off-road ability of a 90, but with a 130 wheelbase, and the length of a 110? You’d need a genius to design such a car.

Well, believe it or not there is a man who did just that. His name is Dr René A S Hoyle (CEng CSci FIMMM MICorr) and this is his creation. You may realise from his letterhead that he is indeed intelligent, but the story gets better, for the everything-in-one nature of the car wasn’t his original plan. No, his original plan was simply to create his perfect 6x6 Defender. If all that wasn’t enough, this amazing Land Rover was conceived by an expert in corrosion. You almost couldn’t make the story up, but it is all true.