2008 Land Rover Defender SVX First Steer
December 14, 2008 by Anthony Crawford
2008 Land Rover Defender SVX First Australian Steer
“Sixty years of fanatical off road experience rolled into one, all bling, all black, Defender 110. Land Rover’s new SVX makes the ‘Tomb Raider’ edition look ordinary”
-words Anthony Crawford Photography Mark Watson and Yvan Fournier
You didn’t see Lara Croft driving a LandCruiser or even a Jeep Wrangler in the original Tomb Raider movie, that just wouldn’t work, said the movie producers.
With Croft being an archaeologist from English aristocracy and all, the Land Rover Defender was the only real choice for the role.
It’s the same reason that countless expeditions to some of the darkest corners of the earth have chosen Land Rover vehicles to get them in and out of those often-precarious spots.
Take Sir Laurens Jan van der Post, a famous Afrikaner author, war hero and explorer, who led several expeditions into the Kalahari Desert using a couple of Land Rover Series 1 vehicles.
There’s also Colonel Leblanc, who in 1949 took one of the first Series I Land Rover’s overland into Ethiopia and from Algiers to Nairobi, taking orders for the vehicles from GOs and NGOs along with anybody else sold on the vehicle’s off road talent.
The list of Land Rover achievements in exploration is far too long and detailed to properly cover in this article, but several notables worth a mention include, those expeditions in North Africa and the Middle East in a Series 1, by famous female explorer Barbara Toy, who called her vehicle Pollyanna.
Let’s not forget Sir Ranulph Fiennes, a former member of the British Special Air Sservice who the Guinness Book of Records called the “World’s Greatest Living Explorer” for his astonishing Transglobe and unaided Polar expeditions, using Series II Land Rovers.
Or the famous First Overland expedition in the 50’s when six students from Oxford and Cambridge, drove non stop from London to Singapore in two Land Rovers. After six months, six days, and 29,000 kilometres both vehicles rolled into Singapore.
Apparently, the only reason the expedition went ahead was because Sir David Attenborough commissioned a three-part TV series on that epic journey while he was working for the BBC.
It’s about heritage and off road credibility, which attracts such undivided loyalty to a brand that only Land Rover knows.
So much so that in 2003, UK TV phenomenon, Top Gear selected nine all time cars from which viewers had to choose “the greatest car of all time”. You know which car received the most votes – the Land Rover Defender, as it is now known.
In all honesty, looking at the 1948 Series I and a current Defender 110 side by side, it’s hard to see a whole lot of evolution going on over those 60 years.
Apart from some shiny new metallic paint and a set of alloys shod with some contemporary rubber, things look pretty much the same as did when Maurice Wilks bolted together the first Series Land Rover on his farm in Newborough, Anglesey.
It’s a good thing too, that steel was in short supply back then, otherwise he would never have used those alloy panels, which more than any other design aspect of the vehicle, has meant that near enough to 75 percent of all Land Rover’s ever built, are still messing up the mud somewhere.
Not quite sure where this comes from but years ago, Land Rover diehards were said to have referred to all other 4WD makes as “disposables” given their previous disposition to rust in the tough conditions in which many of these vehicles operate.
The current Defender 110 (that’s 110 inch wheelbase) with its ladder frame chassis and mostly aluminium panels (there are some steel panels used today which provide better sealing as well as a higher quality fit and finish) remains an incredibly robust vehicle capable of extraordinary feats off road.
Someone at Land Rover HQ at Gaydon in the UK, must have a seriously deranged mind to want to bling up a dedicated off road instrument such as the Defender.
It’s not that the SVX doesn’t look the business, it’s just that no matter what Land Rover do to modernise this 4WD icon, its still hard going in the peak hour quagmire.
The Defender is one of the coolest cars in the world, but not this one. It’s a cool car because it just isn’t trying at all, this one is trying very hard indeed and that is why I would stick to a stock Defender. Saying that, I’d much rather a Discovery which is comfortable, quiet, more powerful, better looking and only a tiny bit more expensive.
If only all those great explorers knew of the current reliability issues plaguing current LR’s and RR’s. I suspect they would be turning in their graves.
It no doubt is a very clever idea, but somehow it really makes you wonder they did it in the first place. People who wanted a comfortable, refined but yet still serious off-roader still would’ve gone to a different page in the Land Rover catalogue and selected either a Range Rover or Discovery (price points not withstanding, of course).
Defender buyers have always been just that; Defender buyers. Wasn’t it said somewhere that most of the Defender market have just been return customers?
I too would probably go for a stock Defender (were I in a market for such a thing) and if I ever felt the need to chav it up.. well. Who knows =p
Devil666, the Defender is the only Land Rover left that has reliability issues and those aren’t really there since Land Rover changed the engine over a few years ago. There are not any reliability issues on either Range Rovers, the Discovery 3 or the Freelander. And don’t try and site recalls to me because all cars have recalls, even Toyotas and Hondas. It’s time that stereotype was put to rest as it’s really quite dated.
Alex,
The reliability issues these days are the electrical systems in LR/RR. There are still huge problems with these vehicles. The JD Power review for 2008 lists Land Rover 3rd last, nothing to rave about.
Who cares whats wrong or right with it, its just bloody cool…
I love my landrover svx, as it is a perfect vehicle or north queensland and copes with all the daily problems of the wet season and more………traded in a bmw for the svx…….no regrets.
Am getting my svx 110 monday. Can’t wait!
I think the SVX is awesome (though I don’t like the front) but I a agree that if I were in the market for a gizmo-equipped LR I’d go for a different model.
Gotta hand it to LR though, this is a great marketing coup.