Like its predecessor, the new Land Rover Defender will also be available with an eight-cylinder. The Defender V8 on the Nürburgring-Nordschleife can be seen in a brand new set of spy photos.
The new Land Rover Defender is available with a range of four and six cylinders, but it doesn’t stop there. The Defender will very likely become available with a V8. A tackless test sample of the Defender, which has been renewed to the smallest bolt, can be seen in a new set of spy photos on the Nürburgring-Nordschleife, the illustrious 20-kilometer circuit on which the Defender V8 is tested.
It is especially the two sets of double exhaust tailpipes under the buttocks of this Defender that betray that we are dealing here with a V8 equipped Defender, a version of which the arrival in the corridors is just as a topic of discussion. The presence of four tailpipes almost always indicates with Jaguar Land Rover products that there is a V8 in the front. It remains to be seen whether the machine comes from Land Rover itself, or whether the brand is knocking on the door at BMW for the well-known 4.4 V8. This wouldn’t be a strange choice, as Land Rover is slowly but surely phasing out its own 5.0 V8.
It is now about twenty years ago that Land Rover had the Defender in the Netherlands with an eight-cylinder on the price lists. Until 2002, Land Rover delivered both the Defender 90 and the 110 with a 3.5 V8 that made it to an unimpressive 136 hp and 254 Nm. Land Rover Classic delivered a limited Defender Works V8 in 2018, a Defender with a 405 hp V8 under the hood. The new Defender with V8 is likely to easily surpass that power. Count on the new Defender with V8 to get between 450 and 500 hp under the hood. A nice competitor for the much heavier Mercedes-Benz G-class in AMG trim.