The Tough New Land Rover Defender 110

It is big, tough, and stylish. The new Defender is as happy steamrolling the regular tarmac as it is when flattening the most challenging off-road trail

- Sameer Kumar

What’s an SUV? That isn’t always an easy question to answer these days. Buyers across segments don’t seem to want cars anymore; everyone wants an SUV. So, of course, every car wants to be an SUV, which is why you have softroaders, crossovers, compact SUVs, SUV-inspired hatchbacks, and more. Marketing types everywhere know a good idea when they see one; take a regular hatchback, jack it up a bit for slightly increased ride height, slap on a bigger set of wheels, bolt on some plastic cladding on the sides and on the wheel arches, add an extra dollop or two of chrome, give it a fancy new paint job and a cool sounding name, and there you have it — a brand-new SUV for the unsuspecting masses.

We aren’t saying all new SUVs are mere pretenders. No, of course not. There are some genuinely good sports utility vehicles out there, which are at least reasonably good to drive on tarmac and, with 4WD, have a fair bit of off-road capabilities as well. But on the other hand, many are only styled to look like an SUV and don’t really have the all-around-go any where capability that defines the real thing. In order to clear the confusion about what is and isn’t the real deal, all one has to do is take a look at the new Land Rover Defender, because it simply doesn’t get more ‘real’ than this. The Land Rover Defender is an SUV in the way Pope Francis is a Catholic, or like Jeff Bezos is wealthy, or like Warren Buffett is a stock market investor. For the most part, there simply isn’t any better.