Living with the Land Rover Defender 90, the world's first V8 hot hatch

After winter’s snow flurries and sub-zero temps, it’s been fun to finally experience the Defender in better conditions. That probably sounds perverse given Land Rover’s all-weather reputation, but the stubby 90 V8 is a car that feels up for being hustled.

This could have something to do with my tendency to use it with the rear seats folded down. As I mentioned in my last report, the boot is such an awkward shape and size that, unless you’re doing a light food shop, whatever it is you need to stuff in there won’t fit.

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I’m not sure there’s much call for my improvised 2.5-ton two-seater V8 all-wheel-drive three-door hot hatch, but it works for me. The ride is a bit choppy – blame the short(ish) wheelbase for that – but so long as you don’t take too many liberties on turn-in, the Defender is a hoot to bung down a fun road. The steering is light, so there’s not a huge amount of feel, but because there’s plenty of lean you soon learn to rely on your internal gyroscope to gauge how hard you’re working the front end.

The automatic transmission has paddle-shifters, but it works well enough left to its own devices. There’s plenty of torque from the supercharged Jag-sourced V8 (not for this Defender the BMW-supplied M5 engine used in the Octa), but it also likes to rev, so there’s a benefit in using a lower gear and revving it out.

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Fuel consumption is pretty awful however you drive. I thought I’d won the lottery when I fleetingly saw 20mpg on a long motorway trip, but this drops to 16mpg or thereabouts on short and medium-distance trips. Nail it on a twisty B-road and you’ll get into the low teens. This begins to hurt a bit when you realise you’re making twice as many trips to your local filling station in any given week, but the Defender has an uncanny knack of making you forgive its thirst every time you push the starter button.

Braking-wise you’re never less than aware of the weight and momentum, especially if you’re slowing from speed into a second- or third-gear corner, or a dual-carriageway roundabout. There’s little point in beasting it, so I’ve found that adopting a lift-and-coast technique akin to that employed by an old-hybrid-era LMP1 driver works a treat. You take less out of the brakes, carry just as much speed and tend to be smoother through the corners, too.

Sadly, the Defender was only a medium-term loan, so it’s now gone back to Land Rover. I genuinely miss the 90 V8, but its replacement can’t come soon enough.

This story was first featured in evo issue 334.

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