Hi,

So I walked into my local JLR dealer over the weekend just to say hi and asked about the Defender V8 in passing. It wasn't so long ago when the Defender was first announced that I inquired about it and was told there were thirty people on the list and to not expect one for a couple of years. At that time I passed on waiting so I when I asked about the V8 the other day I was expecting a similar situation. However by happenstance they had only gotten their first two V8 allocations only a few days before and only one was woken for, so I made a spur of the moment decision and picked up the other one which locked today. Like the title says I went with the CE with gloss black wheels and just a few options like the bigger screen and some accessories. I was surprised about the lack of exterior accessories like the ability to add a roof rack and was wondering if there's an engineering/structural issue behind it or if it's just a byproduct of trying to push the first round of allocations out the door as quickly as possible and it's something I'll be able to add later without issues. I was told probably July delivery but that seems optimistic given the state of the auto industry in general, but I'm willing to be pleasantly surprised with a delivery sometime this summer.

Some background if anyone cares ... I owned a 14, 15, and 16 V8SC FFRR, and a 17 RRS SVR. We spend a lot of time in AZ in the Sedona area and I do a lot of off roading there. I had a ADD built 18 Raptor for that purpose that I recently sold and I currently own a RAM TRX. I'm not sure if I'm going to trade it or keep it when the Defender gets here as I'm not sure the latter is best for the type of off roading I do, but we'll see. I am also a sports car fan and a track rat and race GT4 Clubsports. Happy to post pics of stuff upon request.

Anyhoot, that's all I have for now. I'll take my seat in the waiting area and read through the forum and do some research into these lovely vehicles.

Cheers!

 

Awesome! Congrats!! How much did they ask you to put down?

 

Thanks.

If by ‘put down’ you mean a deposit, then they didn’t ask me for one. I have purchased four LR’s before from them all on a handshake so it would have been weird if they had asked me for one.

 

I’m not sure what you mean by off road but I would say that the V8 will be the least capable variant of the Defender in the range for the purpose I think you mean. At best it’s probably good for drifting in mud or gravel and certainly a hoot to drive on tarmac. But real off roading? I don’t think so. Don’t get me wrong, the JLR SC V8 is a fantastic engine that I’m also very familiar with and I would love to have it in the Defender.

But, I would think the whole package will be too heavy and I’m not sure what wheel/tire options you will have available given the disk brake diameter on the V8. May be I’m completely off base. It just does not seem that JLR had real off roaming in mind when they brought out this model.

 

Well I haven’t off-roaded a Defender of any kind yet so i can’t speak to the differences between them, however I’m sure that the V8 will be quite capable, especially with a different spec tire. After all we did some insane things with a FFRR when I spent two days at the Land Rover Experience center in Asheville a few years ago.





Although I do some forest stuff, most of the trails I’m on are medium to high speed desert runs, hence the Gen 2 Raptor and now the TRX. I imagine the V8 will do fine with that but not as well as the trucks. So I’ll either have the Defender do double duty as a dd and off road toy, or the more likely scenario is that I use the Defender locally as a fun utility dd and store the TRX out in AZ for when I’m there. Anyway, these are good problems to have and I have a few months to figure it out.

Some pics for reference:













And the current one:

 

That TRX is awesome!!!! Saw one the other day. How would you compare it to The Raptor??????

 

well then, I think the V8 Defender will be perfect for that kind of off roading.

 

It's on a completely different level, and I say that having had great affection for my Raptor.

There's something really epic about a 6700lb giant brick doing sub 4 launches, it sounds like it wants to eat you, the fit and finish of the interior is infinitely better even of that of the recently launched Gen 3 Raptor, it's even more comfy to daily drive the the Raptor and my hope is that it will perform equally well out in the desert. If you don't mind not fitting in any parking space and averaging 8mpg I would highly recommend it.

If you like fun things ... this is a fun thing.

 

On a DV8 related note ...

I was thinking of getting the orange tow loops for it, and then I thought that might pop a little too much against the theme of the Carpathian Edition.

So then I thought it might be a better idea to have them painted Xenon Blue to match the calipers.

And then I was thinking leave them alone.

Which is the best thought?

 

Paint them blue!!