Iconic brand takes its rugged large SUV package to even greater lengths On sale Late 2022 Price from £73,895
Charlie Martin Charlie.Martin@haymarket.com
McDONALD’S DINERS CAN think of the new Land Rover Defender 130 as the Grand Big Mac of the iconic SUV’s menu. It takes the already meaty Defender 110 recipe and gives you a bigger serving, a 340mm extension taking its overall length beyond 5.3 metres.The resulting 130 comes as an eight-seater or a five-seater with a vast boot.
Other upgrades from the regular Defender include a standard-fit panoramic glass roof – which has a separate section above the third row of seats – and black roof rails. Several exterior style options are exclusive to the 130, including Sedona Red paint and an Extended Bright Pack, which adds a satin silver finish to the body cladding and chrome to the front and rear skid plates.
In eight-seat guise, the Defender 130’s second and third rows have room for three adults in each, although the middle seats are narrower than the outer ones. Both rows are set slightly higher than the front pair to give occupants a better forward view, but the high roofline means that isn’t likely to leave head room in short supply, even for tall folk.
Up front, the Defender 130 comes with the 11.4in touchscreen infotainment system that was introduced in the Defender 90 and 110 V8s.This features the What3words navigation app, which splits the entire Earth into uniquely named three-by-three-metre squares so you can pinpoint your exact location.
As you might imagine, the 130’s extra length makes it a more commodious load lugger than its shorter siblings.The five-seater offers 1094 litres of luggage space behind its second row, compared with the 786 litres you’ll find in the Defender 110.The rival Mercedes-Benz GLS, meanwhile, offers 890 litres. And while the seven-seat GLS beats the eight-seat 130 for luggage space when all seats are occupied, at 355 litres versus 290, it can swallow 116 litres less cargo than the 130 when both rows are folded down.
Regardless of which Defender 130 you choose, the second row splits in a 40/20/40 arrangement, and the third row of the eight-seat version does the same.This means there’s plenty of flexibility for carrying passengers and cargo at the same time.
The 130 can handle a fair bit of weight, too. The eight-seater has a maximum payload of 750kg and the five-seater 800kg, putting it on a par with small vans such as the Ford Transit Connect. Meanwhile, the 3000k
