Stretched version of the already sizeable five-door Defender gets seating for up to eight and a bigger boot On sale Now Price from £73,895
Neil Winn Neil.Winn@haymarket.com
WHEN LAND ROVER put its designers to work on the second-generation Defender, they faced a particularly thorny question: how on Earth do you reinvent an automotive icon without upsetting its fans?
Their answer was to create an SUV that’s a world apart mechanically from its agricultural predecessor (don’t even think about hosing out the interior now) but still pays tribute to it with its boxy shape. And in another nod to tradition, you can now get the Defender in ‘short and boxy’, ‘long and boxy’ and ‘very long and boxy’ forms – or 90, 110 and 130, as they’re officially known.
Having driven the three-door 90 and the five-door 110, we’re now sampling the five-door, eight-seat 130, which is the newest arrival.
By the way, while those numbers used to refer to the Defender’s wheelbase (the distance between the front and rear wheels), now they don’t. In fact, the 130 has the same wheelbase as the 110, but the rear overhang has been extended to add 340mm overall.
At this point, you might be wondering why Land Rover has gone to the trouble of creating what is in effect a stretched version of the five-door Defender. After all, you’ve been able to specify the 110 with seven seats since its launch in 2020.
Well, it’s all about comfort at the back. The 110’s third-row seats are essentially jump seats. They’re thin and narrow, and you’ll need to slide the middle-row seats forwards to make space for taller occupants’ legs. So, while they’re handy for the occasional school run, they’re not ideal if you’re planning a family ski holiday in the Alps.
That’s not the case with the 130, because its rearmost seats have lots of head, leg and shoulder room for two adults. Access through the gap created by tipping the middle-row seats down is a little tricky, but once you’re in, the low window line and panoramic sunroof make it a pleasantly airy environment. The third-row seats are designed for three people, but the centre one is narrower, so three adults will find it a bit of a squeeze width-wise. On the plus side, there are Isofix child seat points on the outer two seats of rows two and three, as well as on the front passenger seat.
As you’d expect, the 130 has more luggage space than the 110, with 389 litres against 231 litres. You can drop all six rear seatbacks to make space for more kit, and
