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2020 Defender Overland Test Drive · The Overland Journal Podcast

0:00
Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to the Overland Journal podcast. I'm your
0:03
Speaker 1: host Scott Brady, and I am with my co host
0:06
Speaker 1: Matt Scott and today we're going to.
0:09
Speaker 2: Talk about the Defender, the New Defender. This is pretty exciting.
0:13
Speaker 1: Matt and I are actually recording this podcast from Johannesburg,
0:18
Speaker 1: South Africa. I've spent about a week cruising around the
0:21
Speaker 1: country and Matt spent over a week.
0:24
Speaker 2: Yeah.
0:24
Speaker 3: I was in Namibia for two weeks, including the trip
0:27
Speaker 3: that we did with land Rover and Northwestern Namibia to
0:31
Speaker 3: I guess prove the Defender and see if it's worth
0:33
Speaker 3: its metal.
0:34
Speaker 1: And you picked up a seventy nine Series or something.
0:38
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I guess the exact opposite of the Defender.
0:42
Speaker 3: It was an hid J seventy nine with the one
0:45
Speaker 3: aged said diesel in it. It was very slow, but
0:49
Speaker 3: you know, a very dependable vehicle. It's hard to argue
0:52
Speaker 3: with that choice, you know, for Africa. But you know,
0:55
Speaker 3: we're here to talk about the New Defender, which takes
0:59
Speaker 3: a completely differ for an approach than that tried and
1:01
Speaker 3: tested Lankers or that I was in. You know, it's
1:03
Speaker 3: completely independent air suspension, has an electrically supercharged turbocharged engine
1:10
Speaker 3: available as well as a diesel. And I want to
1:12
Speaker 3: say turbocharged B six. That's the P three hundred P
1:16
Speaker 3: four hundred straight six right straight six. Yeah, sorry, I
1:19
Speaker 3: was sight six. Is our guests making a comeback? Yeah,
1:21
Speaker 3: they are so, which is good. I can see that
1:24
Speaker 3: more and more vehicles are doing straight five straight six.
1:26
Speaker 2: Is I like that? So?
1:28
Speaker 3: I think to start, you know, one of the things
1:30
Speaker 3: to get out of the way it was it was a
1:31
Speaker 3: legitimate four wheel drive trip. Even in our I want
1:35
Speaker 3: to say we had about ten or twelve days in Namibia.
1:38
Speaker 3: I don't think we could have done some of the
1:40
Speaker 3: trails that we did in the seventy nine even though
1:42
Speaker 3: it was it was locked heavy, kind of lack of power,
1:45
Speaker 3: and it really made me appreciate that defender, And I
1:48
Speaker 3: guess we're going to get into the details of it.
1:50
Speaker 1: The defender did really well in this Yeah, for sure.
1:53
Speaker 1: I mean that's what I would say.
1:55
Speaker 2: Is Land Rover did a great job of picking a
1:59
Speaker 2: route that would have been something that Matt and I
2:01
Speaker 2: would would have done ourselves on an overland trip. In fact,
2:05
Speaker 2: when I.
2:05
Speaker 1: Was in Namibia the last time with Expedition seven, this
2:09
Speaker 1: route that I did just did with the Defender was
2:13
Speaker 1: my second choice for the country, which included Vanzel's Pass
2:18
Speaker 1: and the Hora Sib and the Skeleton Coast.
2:21
Speaker 2: For Expedition seven. We ended up having a rare opportunity
2:24
Speaker 2: to go through the dunes out to the Skeleton.
2:26
Speaker 1: Coast, so we did that. But this trip is very legitimate.
2:30
Speaker 1: Overlanders from around the world come to Namibia to do
2:34
Speaker 1: this route. It's considered a very challenging route, very remote.
2:38
Speaker 1: There's almost no support. We had to bring fuel with
2:42
Speaker 1: us and extra tires with us, and we were all
2:45
Speaker 1: on our own. This was not a fully scripted media drive.
2:49
Speaker 1: This was a true backcountry overland adventure. And I mean
2:53
Speaker 1: they use the term expedition for something like this, which
2:57
Speaker 1: I think is okay because they do include a lot
3:01
Speaker 1: of support for local charities and local communities, so there
3:04
Speaker 1: was It was overlanding with a purpose, so I think
3:07
Speaker 1: you can apply the term expedition.
3:10
Speaker 3: Too, if not the purpose of proving this vehicle. Mean,
3:12
Speaker 3: this was the first, the first opportunity for people outside
3:17
Speaker 3: of Land River to drive improve this vehicle.
3:19
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, how many Americans did you have in
3:22
Speaker 1: your group?
3:23
Speaker 3: I believe there are including your group, there are eight
3:25
Speaker 3: Americans totally.
3:26
Speaker 1: Yeah, so there's there's only been eight people in the
3:29
Speaker 1: US that have experienced this vehicle, and Matt and I
3:33
Speaker 1: are pretty lucky to have both been So the two
3:36
Speaker 1: out of the eight are on this podcast today, and
3:40
Speaker 1: Matt and I did it in two different waves, which
3:42
Speaker 1: I think was also good because we were able to
3:43
Speaker 1: form a lot of opinions separately. Normally, Matt and I
3:47
Speaker 1: do these these drives together where we can expand upon impressions.
3:51
Speaker 1: But I think it was neat talking with Matt over
3:53
Speaker 1: the last couple of days about the things that he
3:56
Speaker 1: saw stand out and the things that I saw stand out.
3:59
Speaker 1: So when we typically evaluate a vehicle, we're looking at
4:03
Speaker 1: a couple criteria, and this is what we're going to
4:05
Speaker 1: go through in the podcast today. We look at technical
4:08
Speaker 1: terrain performance, we look at dirt road performance. So what's
4:11
Speaker 1: the difference between those two Technical terrain think low range
4:15
Speaker 1: of very low track blockers correct where you're maximizing the
4:20
Speaker 1: need for ground clearance and you're maximizing the need for
4:23
Speaker 1: tractive performance. Dirt road performance is what most of us
4:28
Speaker 1: do when we're traveling from point to point in a
4:31
Speaker 1: backcountry adventure. This can be a gravel road, This could
4:34
Speaker 1: be a higher speed jeep two track, This could be
4:38
Speaker 1: a sandy two track. We did the Merian Fluce Valley,
4:42
Speaker 1: which was a big, wide, open salt pan that was
4:46
Speaker 1: very fun to drive, high speed, very interesting terrain to
4:50
Speaker 1: travel in because we were traveling in tracks of land
4:52
Speaker 1: cruisers which are narrower than the Defender, so it gave
4:55
Speaker 1: us some good insights into traceability and predictability of the
4:59
Speaker 1: vehicle handling, but their road performance. Think about everything from
5:03
Speaker 1: traveling at twenty five thirty miles an hour all the
5:05
Speaker 1: way up to full blown rally car yeah, speeds which
5:09
Speaker 1: we which we were pushing on the on the route
5:12
Speaker 1: from Cesfontaine back back to a Puoh so.
5:15
Speaker 3: And I guess one of the downsides of the trip,
5:18
Speaker 3: I guess is you know, Scott was able to drive
5:21
Speaker 3: the vehicle on road. The way these trips work is
5:23
Speaker 3: you know, you your partner with another journalist and you
5:26
Speaker 3: know you take turns. And unfortunately I wasn't actually able
5:29
Speaker 3: to drive on the pavement, so I won't comment. But
5:33
Speaker 3: the pavement drive was pretty sure five kilometers long, yeah,
5:37
Speaker 3: which is actually quite impressive because the entire trip was
5:40
Speaker 3: six hundred and fifty to seven hundred kilometers depending on
5:43
Speaker 3: the route. So that is it wasn't a trip where
5:47
Speaker 3: we were just driving down regular roads and taking some photos.
5:51
Speaker 3: I've seen some flak for the defender that this is
5:54
Speaker 3: a you know, a very stage trip, and I would
5:56
Speaker 3: not say that it was at all. You know, we
5:58
Speaker 3: got these vehicles stuck, we winched, we max tracks, you know,
6:02
Speaker 3: we actually put them to the test. Question again in
6:07
Speaker 3: comparison for everybody we afterwards in this in the land
6:11
Speaker 3: Cruiser did pretty much all the major stuff.
6:14
Speaker 2: In Namibia.
6:15
Speaker 3: We did three thousand kilometers, about twenty five hundred of
6:19
Speaker 3: which were on dirt or trails or technical trails. And
6:24
Speaker 3: on this this Coca Land Expedition, as Lander was calling it,
6:28
Speaker 3: that was by far the most technical terrain that I
6:30
Speaker 3: traversed in Tomibia. It was legitimate, It was the most remote.
6:33
Speaker 3: If something went wrong there may have actually been consequences.
6:37
Speaker 3: Is obviously the land Rover is very professional and.
6:40
Speaker 2: Well prepared and well prepared, but it was a legitimate
6:43
Speaker 2: four wheel drive trip. It was if you were to
6:46
Speaker 2: rent a car and go do this, it would be
6:48
Speaker 2: a bucket list trip.
6:50
Speaker 1: Is where I would say, and in fact, if you
6:51
Speaker 1: want to learn a little bit more about land rover
6:54
Speaker 1: planning and logistics behind overland adventures like this, take a
6:57
Speaker 1: listen to podcast number eleven where I spent some time
7:01
Speaker 1: with David Sneith, who is the expedition leader for this trip,
7:04
Speaker 1: and then Emma Easter, who handled a lot of the logistics.
7:08
Speaker 1: I think that's some really interesting lessons that can come
7:10
Speaker 1: from how land rover plans and executes on a trip.
7:14
Speaker 1: And then the next thing that we're going to talk
7:16
Speaker 1: about is driving comfort, which I think is a really
7:18
Speaker 1: critical factor factor for traveling out of a vehicle. Then
7:22
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about capacity a little bit, and
7:24
Speaker 1: then we'll wrap up with durability and reliability before Matt
7:28
Speaker 1: and I give our final conclusions on the car. So
7:31
Speaker 1: let's start off with the technical terrain performance. Matt, what
7:34
Speaker 1: was your what was your impressions on the car? Because
7:37
Speaker 1: we kind of hit right, we went right into Venzel's.
7:40
Speaker 3: Right into it, right into it, you know, day one,
7:43
Speaker 3: you know, we got we got to the start of
7:45
Speaker 3: the trip, which is in northern Namibia, and it was
7:47
Speaker 3: kind of a you know, fastert road which we'll get
7:49
Speaker 3: you later and then boom right into Venzel's Pass. We
7:52
Speaker 3: camped at Vanziel's Pass. So it was awesome campsite. Yeah,
7:55
Speaker 3: fantastic campsite. I have to say that I walked into
7:58
Speaker 3: this vehicle really skeptical. I mean, I I think, unlike
8:01
Speaker 3: some I want this vehicle to succeed. I want land
8:05
Speaker 3: Rover to sell this so they can so they can
8:08
Speaker 3: recognize there's a market for four wheel drive and overland
8:11
Speaker 3: products and and continue developing that. I think the people
8:14
Speaker 3: who are betting against this vehicle are betting against their
8:18
Speaker 3: own interests.
8:18
Speaker 2: But I was, I was, I was.
8:20
Speaker 3: I like to think I was healthily skeptical, and I
8:21
Speaker 3: think it's important to do that. I mean, but as
8:25
Speaker 3: a journalist you have to you have to have your
8:27
Speaker 3: you know, those ethics, and you have to look after
8:30
Speaker 3: that reader. And it was it was better than I expected,
8:33
Speaker 3: I guess, is what I'm getting at. I I'll be honest.
8:37
Speaker 3: I wasn't really expecting much. I had I had seen
8:40
Speaker 3: some photos previously of.
8:42
Speaker 2: Were you thinking like slightly better version of an l
8:44
Speaker 2: R four is That's what I was thinking.
8:47
Speaker 3: I didn't think that it would be drastically better, you know,
8:50
Speaker 3: the ability to have that rear locker. The trash of
8:54
Speaker 3: control is again another it's another leap above above what
8:57
Speaker 3: we had previously experienced.
8:59
Speaker 2: It is it's a very easy car to drive smooth.
9:03
Speaker 2: You know.
9:03
Speaker 3: I think that's maybe even even a downside to it.
9:07
Speaker 3: Is the car really is working. It's a very smart vehicle.
9:11
Speaker 3: You'll you'll hear me use the kind of the analogy
9:13
Speaker 3: of analog versus digital lankers or I was driving, for example,
9:17
Speaker 3: very analog via yea one hundred percent analog. But there's
9:22
Speaker 3: so much emphasis placed on that that analog thing.
9:25
Speaker 2: But a lot has happened in thirty years. It's twenty twenty.
9:28
Speaker 2: It's twenty twenty.
9:29
Speaker 3: You know our our phones, you know, know how many
9:32
Speaker 3: steps we walk up like they track us. Everything is
9:36
Speaker 3: is relatively smart. Electronics are reliable now you know, when's
9:40
Speaker 3: the last time your cell phone broke? But yeah, so
9:43
Speaker 3: it was just a again, it's that analog digital thing.
9:46
Speaker 3: It takes a bit to get used to, and you do,
9:49
Speaker 3: I want to say, surrender a little bit of that
9:51
Speaker 3: driver experience.
9:53
Speaker 2: But yeah, I thought it was quite capable.
9:55
Speaker 3: You know, Scott and I previously were talking, Yeah, we
9:58
Speaker 3: think we could do the rubicon in this you would
10:00
Speaker 3: need rock sliders which would be very easy to fit,
10:04
Speaker 3: and put some LT tires on it.
10:05
Speaker 2: And you put in a light truck construction tire.
10:09
Speaker 1: And there's reasons for that. I mean, And to your
10:11
Speaker 1: point about the analog versus digital. After you made that point,
10:15
Speaker 1: I thought about it more. And as long as it's
10:17
Speaker 1: delivering either on a promise or it's executing on a
10:21
Speaker 1: function that improves the driver experience when you're giving up
10:24
Speaker 1: something else, then I think that it makes more sense.
10:27
Speaker 1: And I and in many ways, you're making a vehicle
10:31
Speaker 1: like this very accessible to a new driver. Yeah, someone
10:34
Speaker 1: without a lot of driving experience is going to have
10:37
Speaker 1: a lot better backcountry experience with this vehicle because it
10:40
Speaker 1: is so capable. And then you give up a lot
10:42
Speaker 1: of fatigue.
10:43
Speaker 2: So it was so comfortable. Yeah.
10:46
Speaker 1: In particular, I noticed that the steering was very light.
10:50
Speaker 1: This was early on in the day on Venzel's pass.
10:53
Speaker 1: So I mentioned it to one of the engineers. I
10:55
Speaker 1: said that the steering is very vague, it's very digital,
10:59
Speaker 1: and it's very light. And so I wasn't getting any
11:03
Speaker 1: feedback from the terrain, the rocks or anything else like
11:06
Speaker 1: it was not giving that typical minor vibration, minor steering
11:10
Speaker 1: wheel movement that's telling you what the terrain is providing
11:15
Speaker 1: as an input to the vehicle. Wasn't getting almost any
11:18
Speaker 1: of that. So I talked to the engineering and he's like, well,
11:20
Speaker 1: if it's light, there's no problem.
11:21
Speaker 2: We can fix that.
11:21
Speaker 1: And he goes into the screen and he changes in
11:24
Speaker 1: the custom configurator. He changes the steering to heavy, and
11:27
Speaker 1: then I got that heavy weight that.
11:29
Speaker 2: I wanted, all user accessible.
11:31
Speaker 1: It's pretty amazing, but you do give up some of
11:35
Speaker 1: that trail feedback, but then you gain driver comfort and
11:39
Speaker 1: you gain a reduction in fatigue, which I think is
11:44
Speaker 1: a plus. So there's a plus and a minus to everything.
11:47
Speaker 1: In this case, there's not just a minus, there's actually
11:49
Speaker 1: a plus that comes along with it. So on the
11:52
Speaker 1: technical terrain performance, I give it a three point seventy
11:55
Speaker 1: five out of five, which is our standard rating scale,
11:58
Speaker 1: and there's a couple of reasons for that. The all
12:02
Speaker 1: of the angles are excellent, so you can get up
12:04
Speaker 1: to eleven point five inches of ground ground clearance, you've
12:08
Speaker 1: got about a forty each departure angle.
12:11
Speaker 2: And then what was the approach on this one? Have
12:13
Speaker 2: a look. Matt's going to take a look.
12:15
Speaker 3: Thirty eight degree approach angle and a twenty eight degree
12:18
Speaker 3: breakover angle.
12:19
Speaker 2: So we're good. We're in that wranglar territory for sure.
12:23
Speaker 1: The articulation is quite good for an independent front and
12:27
Speaker 1: rear vehicle.
12:27
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I think it's important to note that, you know,
12:30
Speaker 3: articulation isn't as important articulation traditionally on a Again, I'll
12:35
Speaker 3: use that analog analog, you know, analogy. This vehicle can
12:40
Speaker 3: have tires in the air and it doesn't matter.
12:44
Speaker 1: And it doesn't matter because the vehicle doesn't surprise the driver.
12:48
Speaker 1: So one of the things that we use as an
12:51
Speaker 1: ultimate indicator of technical terrain performance is driver confidence. And
12:55
Speaker 1: one of the things that hurts driver confidence is when
12:58
Speaker 1: the vehicle responds unpredictably, which means when the rear tire
13:04
Speaker 1: gets in the air, when you lift a wheel and
13:07
Speaker 1: it pops up very aggressively, right when that surprises the driver.
13:11
Speaker 2: Very predictable, very predictable, very stable. The hood stays very flat.
13:16
Speaker 1: And part of the reason why it has such good
13:18
Speaker 1: articulation is because is because of the fact that the
13:22
Speaker 1: air bags are cross linked, which means at lower speeds,
13:26
Speaker 1: a valve opens and when one tire compresses up into
13:31
Speaker 1: the wheel well, it forces air pressure out of that
13:34
Speaker 1: bag and into the down wheel. So it actually creates
13:38
Speaker 1: this forced articulation that overcomes the stability that the anti
13:43
Speaker 1: rollbars provide, and it also allows to keep those tires
13:47
Speaker 1: on the ground. So the articulation is very good for
13:50
Speaker 1: an independent vehicle.
13:51
Speaker 3: The thing that I noticed in Technical Train is the
13:53
Speaker 3: lack of head toss, and that's all due to that
13:55
Speaker 3: independent rear suspension. Rather than having that bemaxle that's transmitting
14:00
Speaker 3: that energy to one side of the vehicle or the other,
14:02
Speaker 3: it's transmitting it close to the center axis of that vehicle.
14:06
Speaker 2: And it's really straight up and down. Yeah, it was.
14:09
Speaker 2: It was so fascinating.
14:11
Speaker 3: I walked into this, probably like a lot of you
14:13
Speaker 3: guys are very skeptical of independent rear suspension, and I
14:18
Speaker 3: walked away from it. You know, again, with that analog
14:21
Speaker 3: versus digital argument, it is in a lot of ways better.
14:26
Speaker 3: There's going to be some things where you'd have to
14:28
Speaker 3: work a little bit more, you know, with the defender,
14:30
Speaker 3: but I enjoy that. I mean, I kept saying in
14:33
Speaker 3: the vehicle, it's like the gentleman's wrangler. It's very capable,
14:37
Speaker 3: but it's very comfortable. It's very civilized and no dust inside.
14:42
Speaker 3: I mean, we're guys. We were going through very dusty conditions,
14:47
Speaker 3: very muddy conditions. Namibia has been in a seven year drought,
14:50
Speaker 3: and I know these are juxtaposed, but please understand, Namibia
14:53
Speaker 3: is a juxtaposed place.
14:55
Speaker 2: One place will.
14:55
Speaker 3: Get ten millimeters of rain in a decade, and then
14:58
Speaker 3: across that mountain range will be rainy. So we were
15:01
Speaker 3: able to experience both, particularly in the river that we
15:04
Speaker 3: were going through.
15:05
Speaker 2: The horrors.
15:06
Speaker 3: The horror sib like nothing, it was, I mean it
15:10
Speaker 3: was you were you were so removed in a good way.
15:13
Speaker 3: You know, we were doing ten hour days in the
15:15
Speaker 3: driving days in the vehicle and I walked out great.
15:18
Speaker 2: I mean yeah.
15:19
Speaker 1: I think when it comes to technical terrain performance, I
15:22
Speaker 1: look at it that there is probably three percent of
15:27
Speaker 1: my travels that have required more capability than what the
15:32
Speaker 1: defender has, and that would be something like crossing Antarctica,
15:36
Speaker 1: crossing Greenland where we had to build highly specialized vehicles,
15:39
Speaker 1: any of those other locations. Most of the time the
15:44
Speaker 1: defender will do a better job. Yeah, some of the time,
15:46
Speaker 1: it will struggle a little bit more than a wrangler.
15:49
Speaker 1: But what I think that is important to recognize is
15:53
Speaker 1: that if you compare it to the previous Defender, it's
15:56
Speaker 1: infinitely more.
15:57
Speaker 2: Oh god, it's so much better.
15:58
Speaker 1: It's infinitely more capable for the for the listeners. I
16:02
Speaker 1: drive a Defender one ten. I have a Defender one
16:04
Speaker 1: ten in the fleet, and that vehicle would have struggled
16:09
Speaker 1: to cross a lot of the train that the new
16:11
Speaker 1: Defender did with ease.
16:12
Speaker 2: I not think it would have made it through the
16:14
Speaker 2: horst of river.
16:15
Speaker 3: It would have been hard. It would have been very different.
16:17
Speaker 3: You would have had to wench. I mean, to be fair,
16:18
Speaker 3: some of the defenders new Defenders had to winch. But
16:23
Speaker 3: you would have been you would have been working.
16:25
Speaker 1: It would have It would have taken everything I had
16:28
Speaker 1: in the well to get that vehicle through that.
16:30
Speaker 2: It definitely could do it, but it would be it
16:32
Speaker 2: would have.
16:32
Speaker 1: Been much more difficult. And I would And here's another
16:35
Speaker 1: couple of things that would have changed. I would have
16:37
Speaker 1: been spent at the end of the day, and I
16:39
Speaker 1: would have done it at half of the speedy. So
16:41
Speaker 1: and it's not like we were we were being aggressive.
16:45
Speaker 1: I mean we were just easily traveling through the terrain
16:48
Speaker 1: at twice the speed would have.
16:50
Speaker 3: The limit is just higher, it's much higher, and the
16:53
Speaker 3: base is higher.
16:54
Speaker 2: It is much higher.
16:56
Speaker 1: Yeah, So overall, I think that for me and I
17:00
Speaker 1: Matt'll give his thoughts to summarize technical terrain performance, But
17:04
Speaker 1: for me it ended up being driver confidence, very predictable,
17:09
Speaker 1: highly tractable, very stable, no surprises out of the vehicle.
17:14
Speaker 2: But it does lack that last.
17:17
Speaker 1: Three four percent of capability that you would get from
17:20
Speaker 1: a wrangler, particularly if you wanted to modify it for
17:25
Speaker 1: extreme extreme terrain.
17:26
Speaker 2: But then you get.
17:26
Speaker 1: Outside of the scope of most overland travel or you
17:30
Speaker 1: just you're just talking about recreational four wheeling. Yes, and
17:33
Speaker 1: that's not what this podcast is about. So this is
17:35
Speaker 1: about vehicle based travel, and in that regard for technical
17:39
Speaker 1: terrain performance, I give it a three point seventy five
17:42
Speaker 1: out of five, and.
17:42
Speaker 2: I was really happy with it.
17:44
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, I'd probably write it just a bit higher.
17:46
Speaker 3: I'd probably give it a four out of five. My
17:49
Speaker 3: motivation is travel. My motivation is experience. It's culture. That's
17:52
Speaker 3: what overlanding is to me. I know I rag on
17:55
Speaker 3: about that, but overlanding is not the Rubicon overlanding, is
17:58
Speaker 3: not triple bypass shock and thirty sevens, even though I
18:01
Speaker 3: might have some of that stuff. But yeah, it was.
18:04
Speaker 3: It was a very comfortable vehicle. It was very capable.
18:06
Speaker 3: I think for a traveler, it's more than you would
18:09
Speaker 3: ever need, you know. I think where this trail that
18:13
Speaker 3: we did van Zil's Pass, which I think is kind
18:16
Speaker 3: of the basis of a lot of this this technical
18:18
Speaker 3: train performance discussion that is about it's about as much
18:22
Speaker 3: as I would do as a traveler if I was
18:25
Speaker 3: on an extended trip that remote. For sure, that remote
18:29
Speaker 3: there there would be real consequences to you. I mean
18:31
Speaker 3: there were There was one obstacle, kind of a shelf
18:34
Speaker 3: where the left front kind of goes down into a hole,
18:39
Speaker 3: and you didn't really realize how much the vehicle was
18:42
Speaker 3: working for you. And then you pass that and you
18:45
Speaker 3: look down and there was two rolled vehicles down There
18:48
Speaker 3: was a high lux down there and an old land
18:52
Speaker 3: cruiser down there that that head rolled, you know, So
18:55
Speaker 3: that that to me shows that it was a legitimate trail.
18:59
Speaker 3: I think if you can roll a vehicle, it's it's
19:02
Speaker 3: it's it's technical. And this thing cruised through it.
19:05
Speaker 1: And for those that are listening that might say, oh,
19:07
Speaker 1: it looks like you guys only went down Venzel's Pass,
19:09
Speaker 1: just know that the new Defender was also taken up
19:12
Speaker 1: the pass by some of the scouts during.
19:16
Speaker 2: And in the half of the trip did have some
19:19
Speaker 2: sort of clime PN It didstly.
19:21
Speaker 3: It is the easiest the way we went. Yeah, overall,
19:26
Speaker 3: very favorable, very much. So, Now what do you think
19:29
Speaker 3: on the dirt road performance? Love smiles for me.
19:32
Speaker 2: A lot of smiles for me.
19:35
Speaker 3: I having some time to reflect, and again I'm going
19:38
Speaker 3: back to this land Cruiser that I was immediately driving afterwards,
19:42
Speaker 3: because I don't think anybody would argue that that seventy
19:46
Speaker 3: nine series is a bad choice.
19:47
Speaker 2: It's arguably the seventy is the golden staple.
19:50
Speaker 3: We're doing one hundred and twenty I think on a
19:53
Speaker 3: you know, in a closed course section, I was cruising
19:55
Speaker 3: out a one hundred and fifty and we didn't even
19:57
Speaker 3: realize that. My drive partner and I looked over like,
19:59
Speaker 3: oh I should slow down, And it wasn't that we
20:03
Speaker 3: were even pushing the vehicle. It's just it's that well
20:06
Speaker 3: damp and the suspension really really works it's very comfortable.
20:10
Speaker 3: These were roads that same exactly mean, some of these
20:13
Speaker 3: were the exact same roads that I was struggling in
20:16
Speaker 3: this seventy nine series to do seventy kilometers an hour. Sure,
20:20
Speaker 3: if I was at you know that engine party engines
20:24
Speaker 3: is about a four thousand rpm redline. If I was
20:25
Speaker 3: at thirty five hundred, I can maybe do eighty five.
20:28
Speaker 3: So if that's just a way to kind of cross
20:31
Speaker 3: compare for the listeners, it's breadth of capability is pretty good.
20:36
Speaker 3: It was I don't know that was that was the
20:39
Speaker 3: most impressive thing for me. It was it's dirt road performance.
20:42
Speaker 3: If I was looking for a technical terrain performer, I'd
20:47
Speaker 3: probably still go with a Wrangler if that was if
20:49
Speaker 3: I was seeking out creational mode, recreational four wheel driving.
20:54
Speaker 2: But yeah, you couldn't. You couldn't.
20:56
Speaker 3: You couldn't pay me to drive anything else over just
20:58
Speaker 3: extended dirt roads. I mean, it is very very comfortable.
21:00
Speaker 1: It's very comfortable there, and there's some technical reasons for
21:03
Speaker 1: that that we we'd like to go into. So you're
21:05
Speaker 1: not hearing just are the summary of our opinions, but
21:08
Speaker 1: the vehicle being four wheel independent, all of those inputs
21:13
Speaker 1: are being isolated, typically.
21:15
Speaker 2: To just a single wheel. That's the problem with a
21:17
Speaker 2: beam axle.
21:18
Speaker 1: A land cruiser in particular, have I've got hundreds of
21:21
Speaker 1: thousands of kilometers in land in land cruisers, and anytime that,
21:27
Speaker 1: for example, the right front wheel has an event on
21:31
Speaker 1: the on a road, a lot of that energy is
21:34
Speaker 1: being translated across the entire beam axle, which is translated
21:37
Speaker 1: into the driver, and it also affects the vehicle's handling,
21:40
Speaker 1: so it can interrupt the chassis. It can also interrupt traction,
21:44
Speaker 1: and it can affect braking. So for example, there are
21:48
Speaker 1: several what I consider gold standard tests for tractive performance
21:54
Speaker 1: and for limit handling capability of a vehicle on a
21:56
Speaker 1: dirt road. So what I do is a series of tests.
22:00
Speaker 1: One is vehicle stability control on emergency lane change. The
22:04
Speaker 1: vehicle stability control was very predictable. It did come on
22:07
Speaker 1: quite aggressively when I did a very aggressive lane change
22:11
Speaker 1: because the vehicle was beginning to oversteer, so back right
22:15
Speaker 1: corner slows down, straightens the vehicle out, and it did
22:20
Speaker 1: do that relatively aggressively. Anything less than that very predictable,
22:24
Speaker 1: and most drivers wouldn't even know that it's happening. Then
22:26
Speaker 1: I did vehicle stability Control off. One of the things
22:29
Speaker 1: that I want a vehicle to be able to do
22:31
Speaker 1: is turn off VSC and allow for some yaw, and
22:35
Speaker 1: allow for some oversteer, and allow for some even controlled understeer,
22:40
Speaker 1: trail braking, all of those dynamic characteristics that make it
22:44
Speaker 1: really fun to drive a car like this off road
22:46
Speaker 1: and can actually, with the right skills, make the vehicle
22:48
Speaker 1: perform better and safer. So with vehicle stability Control off,
22:52
Speaker 1: it did allow for a lot of fun.
22:54
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's one.
22:55
Speaker 3: A lot of rotation when aarry where maybe I would
22:57
Speaker 3: disagree a little bit. I did think that regards wardless
23:00
Speaker 3: of the drive mode that I was in when I
23:01
Speaker 3: turned that stability control off, it was it was still
23:05
Speaker 3: on and I and I guess it doesn't it doesn't
23:07
Speaker 3: go off. Yeah, I noticed it, particularly in sand. You know,
23:11
Speaker 3: we were my drive partner, and I definitely in the
23:15
Speaker 3: particularly the diesel model, experienced a lot of head toss
23:18
Speaker 3: in sand because you know, as Scott previously mentioned, a
23:22
Speaker 3: lot of these these tracks are are driven by land cruisers.
23:25
Speaker 3: I have a narrower track with so you didn't necessarily
23:29
Speaker 3: fit into the ruts and the vehicles is trying to
23:32
Speaker 3: keep you in the ruts too much, even though like
23:34
Speaker 3: I just wanted it to go off. You know, the
23:36
Speaker 3: vehicle wasn't having any problems, but you know, you'd kind
23:39
Speaker 3: of steer left into the rut and then it would
23:41
Speaker 3: break the right front and it would kind of just
23:42
Speaker 3: drag you back and forth into this head and with
23:45
Speaker 3: even with it off now in sand mode, and I
23:50
Speaker 3: will say that that was in the diesel, which we
23:52
Speaker 3: won't get when I drove very similar conditions.
23:56
Speaker 2: Both my drive partner Emmy Hall.
23:58
Speaker 3: And I very experience it's to offread Racer herself. We
24:02
Speaker 3: thought that it was drastically different, so that could be
24:04
Speaker 3: a pre production issue. There were some minor little pre
24:07
Speaker 3: production things. When we went to turn the base up,
24:10
Speaker 3: it went down on the stereo, and there are some
24:13
Speaker 3: little things. But these were essentially prototype vehicles that we
24:19
Speaker 3: were able to drive. So there are some things that
24:21
Speaker 3: I think we're both kind of looking past software wise.
24:24
Speaker 1: And that could be the case because when I was
24:26
Speaker 1: doing the higher speed dirt road driving, it was all
24:29
Speaker 1: in the straight six. Yeah, so it may have a
24:33
Speaker 1: different mapping for the VSE. That's very possible. Yeah, But
24:37
Speaker 1: I in my experience with it, I found that there
24:41
Speaker 1: was a lot of linearity, a lot of traceability, which
24:44
Speaker 1: means in a large sweeping corner, it was It did
24:49
Speaker 1: a great job of line holding. It didn't favor under steer,
24:52
Speaker 1: which is something that I don't like a lot of
24:54
Speaker 1: manufacturers do that for safety. But it did not favor understeer.
24:58
Speaker 1: It really held neutral, very neutral. It really held the
25:01
Speaker 1: line well. I did heavy breaking in a corner. That's
25:04
Speaker 1: one of the tests that we always do because let's
25:06
Speaker 1: say Donkey comes out into the road or another vehicle
25:09
Speaker 1: has blown the corner and you need to do an
25:11
Speaker 1: aggressive breaking in a corner. What does the vehicle do?
25:15
Speaker 1: Does it lose its mind? And this this car did
25:18
Speaker 1: not lose its mind. In fact, excellent weight transfer to
25:21
Speaker 1: the front axle, very effective breaking, abs intervention absolutely.
25:26
Speaker 2: Very little dive.
25:26
Speaker 3: Again because of that error suspension and those those ride
25:29
Speaker 3: height sensors, it's.
25:30
Speaker 2: Able to correctural lobbit and say it.
25:33
Speaker 3: One thing I give it five stars on is its
25:36
Speaker 3: abs Yeah really good.
25:37
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean you hardly even know it's Yeah.
25:40
Speaker 3: Again, in the land Cruiser, you know, ORYX runs out,
25:44
Speaker 3: Zebra runs out, emergency stop and it's just like instantly
25:49
Speaker 3: the abs kicks in and on a dirt road that's
25:52
Speaker 3: not really a good thing. Where with the land Rover Defender,
25:56
Speaker 3: it was driver focused, I felt very much.
25:58
Speaker 1: So, and it would allow for or even some lock
26:01
Speaker 1: up as long as it wasn't.
26:03
Speaker 2: Creating an event where the.
26:05
Speaker 1: Vehicle was understeering or oversteering. And there was a couple
26:09
Speaker 1: other things that I thought were class leading. One of
26:11
Speaker 1: the things that I noticed was the windshield wipers. Did
26:14
Speaker 1: you I mean, they were the best winche wipers I've
26:17
Speaker 1: ever seen them.
26:17
Speaker 2: Yeah. Actually, when you think about it, because going down
26:19
Speaker 2: the horse they were insane. That was so good.
26:21
Speaker 3: You know, one hundred river crossings or something. It was
26:24
Speaker 3: I mean, this is a river that hasn't flown that
26:27
Speaker 3: periodically flows and it was it was moving, so.
26:31
Speaker 2: Yeah, like like really really good.
26:33
Speaker 1: Or if you get dust on the windshield. And part
26:35
Speaker 1: of the reason why I think it works so well
26:37
Speaker 1: is they have these huge hoses that go to the sprayers.
26:41
Speaker 2: Yeah, and the sprays fluid, and the sprayers are on
26:44
Speaker 2: the arm, They're not on the hood, so.
26:47
Speaker 1: As it's sweeping, it's spraying the surface. So it's getting
26:51
Speaker 1: really good coverage of the of the washer fluid. And
26:54
Speaker 1: it's that seems like a little thing, kind of like
26:57
Speaker 1: not important. But if you think about how much we
26:59
Speaker 1: use our wiper to clear dust.
27:01
Speaker 3: During the only place I could see that really kind
27:04
Speaker 3: of being an issue originally being from Chicago is spraying
27:08
Speaker 3: that fluid on the windshield is a lifeline sometimes with ice.
27:14
Speaker 3: I would like to see how that would work for
27:16
Speaker 3: sure for listeners in colder climates.
27:19
Speaker 2: Heated windshield. Oh yeah, there we go.
27:22
Speaker 3: So guys, that has a heated windshield, so it's not
27:24
Speaker 3: really not a problem.
27:27
Speaker 2: Yeah, there we go. I take that back. But extremely
27:30
Speaker 2: low driver fatigue. Very easy to drive.
27:33
Speaker 1: So if you're doing even standard speeds on roads like that,
27:36
Speaker 1: you're going to end the day much more relaxed. Oh yeah,
27:39
Speaker 1: much less fatigue. If you have an event, animal runs out, kids,
27:44
Speaker 1: kid runs out after a ball, the vehicle is very
27:46
Speaker 1: predictable and very capable in stopping and avoiding those events.
27:51
Speaker 1: I did notice a little bit more body roll, which
27:54
Speaker 1: I'm thinking is partly due to the fact that there
27:56
Speaker 1: was one hundred and fifty pounds on the roof.
27:59
Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, yeah, there was a full spare tire on top,
28:02
Speaker 3: the little bit of fuel max, A little bit of
28:04
Speaker 3: fuel max tracks a shovel, and obviously the roof rack.
28:09
Speaker 3: But the defender has you know, class leading dynamic and
28:12
Speaker 3: static roofload capability.
28:14
Speaker 2: Three hundred and seventy pound dynamic roofload rating, which is.
28:17
Speaker 3: So that's your roof tent and your roof rack with
28:19
Speaker 3: some with some room to spare. Land River is going
28:22
Speaker 3: to have a roof tent out And it is not
28:25
Speaker 3: the cheapest Chinese better it's a I won't say hu,
28:28
Speaker 3: but it is a well known, well respected company that
28:32
Speaker 3: is manufacturing it for them. I think that that's kind
28:35
Speaker 3: of cool that they're taking that into consideration.
28:37
Speaker 1: It's an option when you buy the car, that's yeah, yeah, yeah.
28:40
Speaker 1: So overall, the dirt road performance I think was good.
28:42
Speaker 1: I'd give it a three point seventy five to four.
28:46
Speaker 1: I would give it a four. I was being slightly
28:49
Speaker 1: critical of its dirt road performance, and I am acknowledging
28:52
Speaker 1: that that I've got a little bit of confirmation bias
28:54
Speaker 1: on that because I wanted it to handle some of
28:58
Speaker 1: the larger events a little better. So think about like
29:01
Speaker 1: a g out at the bottom of a wash or
29:03
Speaker 1: something like that. I was getting a little bit more
29:05
Speaker 1: purposing than I would typically like, so very light on rebound.
29:09
Speaker 1: But after the landover I talked to the landover engineers.
29:12
Speaker 1: They gave me some feedback on that that definitely lets
29:15
Speaker 1: me push it up to the four with an acknowledgment
29:19
Speaker 1: of the lighter rebound, and they said they intentionally made
29:22
Speaker 1: the rebound light because they wanted the suspension to react
29:26
Speaker 1: extremely quickly to input. So think about climbing a rocky hill.
29:30
Speaker 1: They wanted the suspension to be very quick to respond
29:34
Speaker 1: to keep tires on the ground. So they did it
29:36
Speaker 1: with intention. So anytime I noticed something that's maybe a
29:40
Speaker 1: little off in a specific scenario and I talked to
29:42
Speaker 1: an engineer about it, and they say, we understand that
29:45
Speaker 1: we did it intentionally, and this is why I definitely Yeah,
29:49
Speaker 1: I definitely give them a couple points back for that.
29:51
Speaker 1: So I would say that I'd probably give it a
29:53
Speaker 1: four on the Yeah, how about you, Matt.
29:55
Speaker 3: I thought that for a wagon SUV that it was
30:00
Speaker 3: it was really good.
30:01
Speaker 2: I used to have a Raptor.
30:03
Speaker 3: It's it's maybe not as fun to drive as that,
30:06
Speaker 3: but you're not really.
30:07
Speaker 2: Expecting it to be.
30:08
Speaker 3: But I think there's actually, you know, some scenarios where
30:10
Speaker 3: the defender would would would happily keep up speaking with
30:13
Speaker 3: the engineers. It has a two inch shock, which is
30:17
Speaker 3: a lot of fluid volume, like quite a bit of
30:18
Speaker 3: quite a bit of fluid volume. I know everybody these
30:21
Speaker 3: days is going to these crazy things. For travelers, A
30:24
Speaker 3: two inch shock is money. It's it's kind of the
30:28
Speaker 3: right in the middle, so you know you're going to
30:30
Speaker 3: have the durability.
30:31
Speaker 2: I noticed almost zero fade. Yeah, I brought that up.
30:35
Speaker 2: It was great. I mean it.
30:37
Speaker 3: I previously thought that the Gladiator was one of the
30:40
Speaker 3: most comfortable vehicles I had driven on fort road performance,
30:43
Speaker 3: long wheelbase, relatively softly sprung, decent valving. Rubicon comes with
30:48
Speaker 3: the Fox shocks, and this definitely beats that. I'm going
30:52
Speaker 3: to give it a four and a half. Nice I
30:54
Speaker 3: thought that, particularly like going through the washes that had
30:56
Speaker 3: just run, there's a lot of square edge bumps, and
31:00
Speaker 3: it was very rounded on those, to a point where
31:03
Speaker 3: if you wanted to have a similar ride quality in
31:06
Speaker 3: that scenario from a traditionally sprung vehicle, you'd have to
31:10
Speaker 3: get into shock tuning.
31:11
Speaker 2: That was my opinion. Yeah, so four and a half
31:14
Speaker 2: out of five on that one.
31:15
Speaker 1: Yeah, so that's like a class leading dirt road performance
31:18
Speaker 1: for you, and I would say it was very close
31:20
Speaker 1: to that for me.
31:21
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's the vehicle I think of what would be better,
31:23
Speaker 3: to be honest, Yeah, it's more comfortable than the G class.
31:27
Speaker 2: In my experiences. Mine handles larger events a little better,
31:32
Speaker 2: but that's because it has perfectly tuned shocks. Yeah.
31:36
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm still on the stock shocks with mine. More rebound.
31:39
Speaker 3: Can you have way more up travel?
31:41
Speaker 2: I do? Yeah?
31:42
Speaker 3: I mean, is it is comparable dirt road performance to
31:46
Speaker 3: my modified Gladiator on thirty seven inch tires with King shocks?
31:51
Speaker 2: Would you say that the raptor was better?
31:55
Speaker 3: Yeah, so large raptors better, but the raptors also probably
32:00
Speaker 3: teen inches wider. It's a lot more stressful to drive,
32:03
Speaker 3: a lot more snap.
32:04
Speaker 2: Over a steer. Yeah. This car was so predictable, Yeah,
32:07
Speaker 2: very predictable.
32:08
Speaker 3: I'd go into corners hot on purpose, Emmy would get
32:12
Speaker 3: to corners.
32:12
Speaker 2: I mean, I mean it was it was interesting breaking, Yeah,
32:15
Speaker 2: a lot of breaking.
32:16
Speaker 3: To sit in the passenger seat with Emmy, who you know,
32:19
Speaker 3: just has won the Rebel Rally once or twice, won
32:21
Speaker 3: it last year and a Rolls Frist culling him. You know,
32:24
Speaker 3: has competed in the Baja one thousand, regularly competes in deservation.
32:27
Speaker 3: She knows what she's doing, and it was just like
32:30
Speaker 3: it was comfortable. It was it was it was very composed. Again,
32:34
Speaker 3: I go back to that Gentleman's Wrangler.
32:36
Speaker 2: Yeah. So definitely some good good points for dirt road performance. Yeah,
32:40
Speaker 2: yet getting.
32:42
Speaker 3: Road performer if you're the kind of person that is
32:44
Speaker 3: exploring that is not rock crawling.
32:47
Speaker 2: I think stock for stock, this is really not much
32:51
Speaker 2: like it.
32:51
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I mean multi stage airbags. It's finally at
32:56
Speaker 3: a point where it's the technology has matured, in my opinion.
33:00
Speaker 1: Yeah, So those that think this is just an LR
33:02
Speaker 1: four air suspension underneath there, it's not. It's an all
33:05
Speaker 1: new generation. It's also there's been some mistakes in saying
33:09
Speaker 1: that this vehicle shares an exact chassis with a Discovery,
33:13
Speaker 1: and it's actually an entirely different subframe. There is some
33:17
Speaker 1: architecture that is shared with the Discovery, but other than
33:20
Speaker 1: the functional architecture, almost every part is different or reinforced
33:25
Speaker 1: for durability. But the thing that's most notable is the
33:28
Speaker 1: air bag suspension is multi stage, so there's multiple diaphragms
33:32
Speaker 1: in there which allows for it to ramp up rate.
33:36
Speaker 1: So think about of it being like a progressive spring.
33:40
Speaker 1: And this was very interesting talking to the engineers. When
33:42
Speaker 1: you had an LR four an LR three, it would
33:44
Speaker 1: drop at thirty miles an hour, it would drop down
33:47
Speaker 1: to the normal setting on the suspension, and I always
33:49
Speaker 1: thought that was because of vehicle dynamics in center gravity,
33:53
Speaker 1: and the engineer says, that's a factor, but it's a
33:56
Speaker 1: minor factor. The real reason why they had to drop
33:59
Speaker 1: the air suspension is because the air bags were so
34:02
Speaker 1: hard because of all the pressure in them that it
34:04
Speaker 1: was transmitting tons of force to the suspension components and connections.
34:09
Speaker 2: And to the air bag itself.
34:11
Speaker 1: So they could have air bag failures, they could have
34:15
Speaker 1: arm failures, they could have bushing failures, they could have
34:17
Speaker 1: component failures because it was so rigid. Because of the
34:21
Speaker 1: Now with this new defender being multi stage and progressive,
34:24
Speaker 1: there are elements of the airbag that are still very
34:26
Speaker 1: compliant despite the fact that you're having larger events. So
34:31
Speaker 1: as a result, and this is very notable, it doesn't
34:35
Speaker 1: lower down to normal mode until fifty miles per hour now,
34:39
Speaker 1: but it's in two stages, so at thirty miles an
34:41
Speaker 1: hour it drops maybe twenty millimeters, and then at the
34:45
Speaker 1: fifty mile an hour market drops back down completely to
34:48
Speaker 1: the normal range, so you retain a lot of running
34:51
Speaker 1: ground clearance even at higher speeds.
34:54
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean that's a big thing, guys. So where
34:57
Speaker 3: before you basically had that one air bag basically just
35:00
Speaker 3: increasing the rate of With this, they're able to increase
35:03
Speaker 3: the rate of a portion of it and still have
35:05
Speaker 3: the compliance and the original rate of what it would
35:09
Speaker 3: be at a standard.
35:09
Speaker 2: Yeah.
35:09
Speaker 1: Impressive technology, and it just continues to get better and better.
35:13
Speaker 1: Since land Rover puts all of their eggs in the
35:15
Speaker 1: air suspension basket, they spend a lot of R and
35:18
Speaker 1: D and engineering on making it better, and it's really
35:21
Speaker 1: getting good, it really is.
35:23
Speaker 3: They will have a coil sprung steel coil version. We
35:26
Speaker 3: did not get to drive that, but I have to
35:29
Speaker 3: say I've always argued against people converting land rovers. Specifically
35:33
Speaker 3: all our three es L refers to coil, because you
35:35
Speaker 3: basically end up with a Subaru with low range. You're
35:39
Speaker 3: losing that crosslink capability. This vehicle exceeds because of its technology.
35:44
Speaker 1: I think, so I just want to keep it in
35:46
Speaker 1: good working order. I think once you get up to
35:48
Speaker 1: around that one hundred thousand mile mark, you should probably
35:50
Speaker 1: look at swapping out air bags every Yeah.
35:53
Speaker 2: And to be fair, coil springs wear out too.
35:56
Speaker 3: Coil springs sag, they do, they just don't have the
35:58
Speaker 3: same consequence if they fail.
36:01
Speaker 2: Yeah, So that's for sure.
36:02
Speaker 3: Semichucks have been running air suspension for ever. The technology exists.
36:08
Speaker 3: It is durable.
36:09
Speaker 1: So on road performance, dynamic performance, I'm just going to
36:12
Speaker 1: talk about that a little bit because I don't think
36:14
Speaker 1: that we can provide a final allocation on rating for
36:18
Speaker 1: that because we just simply did not have enough.
36:20
Speaker 2: Time on the road.
36:21
Speaker 1: But in the four or five kilometers that I drove
36:24
Speaker 1: it on the pavement, I was very aggressive with it,
36:27
Speaker 1: and I did as many of the testing elements as
36:29
Speaker 1: I could. Again, minor body role, I think a lot
36:32
Speaker 1: of that influenced by the roofload, but very controllable, excellent
36:37
Speaker 1: breaking in a corner, exceptional stopping performance, particularly out of
36:41
Speaker 1: the straight six model that I was driving at the time,
36:44
Speaker 1: very traceable around corners. This was fortunate, not just a
36:47
Speaker 1: straight section of pavement it was pretty curvy, so I
36:51
Speaker 1: was able to push it a little bit and it
36:54
Speaker 1: would easily outperform a Wrangler in those scenarios, and it
36:57
Speaker 1: would also outperform a Forerunner based upon my experience as well,
37:00
Speaker 1: which I would say is it's competitors in the space.
37:03
Speaker 1: So on road performance, we've got to hold off on
37:06
Speaker 1: a final rating on that, but I think it did
37:08
Speaker 1: do a good job dynamically in that short section that
37:12
Speaker 1: that we had. And then we're going to move on
37:13
Speaker 1: to driver comfort. How do you want to kind of
37:15
Speaker 1: summarize that, Matt in your opinion a.
37:18
Speaker 2: Five and move on. It was it was class lead.
37:22
Speaker 3: It was very you know, the interior is grade on it.
37:25
Speaker 3: It has that it almost looks like a Defender most
37:28
Speaker 3: from the front seats. It has that open classic Defender dash.
37:33
Speaker 2: I like it. I always. I don't know. I mean, I.
37:36
Speaker 3: Take my wallet out, I take my keys out, I
37:39
Speaker 3: take my phone out when I get into a car,
37:41
Speaker 3: and here there's actually some place to put them. Like
37:44
Speaker 3: in my Wrangler or even my G Class, there's nowhere
37:47
Speaker 3: to put this stuff with the With the Defender, the
37:50
Speaker 3: entire dash is essentially hollow.
37:52
Speaker 2: There's plenty of room to put stuff.
37:54
Speaker 3: You put water bottles, you put maps, you can put
37:56
Speaker 3: your GPS, little charging ports, charging ports everywhere. It was
38:00
Speaker 3: definitely very well thought out.
38:02
Speaker 1: I like that magnesium piece that comes all the way across.
38:06
Speaker 1: It's got the defender on it. Even the infotainment screen
38:10
Speaker 1: looks like an iPad. If you think about how we
38:13
Speaker 1: travel as overlays, oftentimes we've got a ram mount that's
38:16
Speaker 1: holding our iPad that we're using to navigate.
38:18
Speaker 2: It's like it was meant to be there.
38:21
Speaker 3: I will say, like my experience with land River's infotainment
38:24
Speaker 3: has not been the best. I think it's a little
38:27
Speaker 3: bit too design focused and a little bit buggy. These
38:30
Speaker 3: were pre production vehicles, so I won't leave a final
38:32
Speaker 3: comments on that, but definitely better than previous models. Yeah,
38:35
Speaker 3: des better than previous models. They have an option of
38:38
Speaker 3: a front bench seat, so three seats up front.
38:41
Speaker 2: I like that really cool. I don't know if I
38:43
Speaker 2: would do that. Yeah, I would want.
38:45
Speaker 1: I would want to do it, but I don't know
38:47
Speaker 1: that I would actually need it. But I just think
38:48
Speaker 1: it's so cool that they have a center seat option,
38:51
Speaker 1: which harkens back to the original Series truck and when
38:56
Speaker 1: the seat's down. It's got all those little charge ports
38:59
Speaker 1: in the back, got a couple cup holders, Caro.
39:02
Speaker 3: Did my series have a center a center seat? Some
39:04
Speaker 3: of them do, Yeah, I can't remember if mine did.
39:07
Speaker 2: Yeah, a lot of people swap them out for a
39:09
Speaker 2: center console, but yeah, originally they came with three seats
39:12
Speaker 2: in the front. Yeah.
39:13
Speaker 3: My favorite option for that center console is what I
39:16
Speaker 3: will call this sunken center console with without the seat,
39:19
Speaker 3: without the full center console, I had plenty of places
39:23
Speaker 3: to put cameras, phones, stop holders, all that kind of stuff.
39:27
Speaker 3: Still allowed you to get to the back of the vehicle.
39:28
Speaker 3: Would be great if people had kids or dogs. I
39:31
Speaker 3: looked at it my dog, I'm like, well, sweep, my
39:33
Speaker 3: dog can kind of come hang out up front.
39:35
Speaker 2: That would be a nice setup. And then if you
39:37
Speaker 2: wanted to stick a fridge between the front seats, yeah,
39:39
Speaker 2: you easily could. It was I think the interior it's
39:43
Speaker 2: a high point.
39:43
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean to kind of use this as a
39:46
Speaker 3: transition to the exterior. I think the interior is a
39:49
Speaker 3: modern defender. I think the rear of the vehicle is
39:53
Speaker 3: a modern defense is a modern defender. I don't like
39:55
Speaker 3: the front end. I not only have concerns. I liked
40:00
Speaker 3: fit some kind of steel bumper to vehicles for you know,
40:03
Speaker 3: animal strike protection. The winch package that doesn't look like
40:07
Speaker 3: a plastic bullbar that the driver trainers told.
40:10
Speaker 2: Me it's actually steel underneath. That's right.
40:12
Speaker 3: They don't have to metal underneath. Yet they have to
40:15
Speaker 3: consider You got to realize, guys, they're designing this car
40:18
Speaker 3: for the next ten or fifteen years, in a time
40:20
Speaker 3: when things are going to be going electric, in a
40:22
Speaker 3: time when things are going to be going autonomous. Pedestrian
40:25
Speaker 3: pedestrian safety is a thing, but Europe is now leading
40:29
Speaker 3: the world in terms of emissions and impact safety. So
40:33
Speaker 3: we're going to see that stuff come over. And why
40:36
Speaker 3: is it a bad thing that if you hit a
40:38
Speaker 3: pedestrian they don't die? Like why are people sticking to
40:41
Speaker 3: their guns on this? Like that kind of makes you
40:44
Speaker 3: sound like a sociopath.
40:45
Speaker 2: Like true.
40:46
Speaker 1: I just think that they could have carried some of
40:49
Speaker 1: that design language from the rear of the vehicle and
40:52
Speaker 1: the interior of the vehicle to the front of the
40:54
Speaker 1: vehicle and I'll be.
40:55
Speaker 2: Specific so that it doesn't just sound like a MorphOS Right.
40:58
Speaker 1: So I don't like the fact that the round headlight
41:01
Speaker 1: is cut in the yeah, a top twenty five percent
41:04
Speaker 1: of it. If they had retained an entirely round headlight
41:08
Speaker 1: like the original Defender, that would have helped. I think
41:10
Speaker 1: it looks a little bit sad or angry like it
41:14
Speaker 1: gives kind of looks like the Jeep angry eye get
41:17
Speaker 1: it does, And I don't think that that was I
41:18
Speaker 1: don't think that that was necessary. And I think things
41:21
Speaker 1: just like that, where if they had given it a
41:24
Speaker 1: full round headlight. If you look at the new G class,
41:27
Speaker 1: it's almost imperceptible between unless you know what you're looking for,
41:31
Speaker 1: between a twenty twenty G Class and the previous model,
41:35
Speaker 1: because they retain so much of the of the design
41:38
Speaker 1: language and they still meet the pedestrian safety requirements once
41:43
Speaker 1: you get into design it, it's.
41:46
Speaker 2: Just so subspective and its personal opinion.
41:48
Speaker 1: Obviously, given the fact that I drive a Classic Defender
41:52
Speaker 1: and that I've owned a lot of land Rovers, I
41:54
Speaker 1: wanted the front end to look a certain way and
41:56
Speaker 1: it didn't quite It didn't quite match the other vehicle
42:00
Speaker 1: in the lineup, and it didn't quite match the rest
42:02
Speaker 1: of the design language in the vehicle. So I suspect
42:05
Speaker 1: the aftermarket will address that, and that would be kind
42:08
Speaker 1: of neat to see how the aftermarket addresses that. It'll
42:12
Speaker 1: be really interesting to see what comes of it. I
42:15
Speaker 1: am grateful to see that there is a factory optioned.
42:18
Speaker 3: Yeah warranty on Winch with synthetic line correct and you
42:21
Speaker 3: can you can see the line you can as yeah.
42:24
Speaker 1: And the even the recovery points they were all designed
42:28
Speaker 1: to take three times gross vehicle weight rating.
42:31
Speaker 3: That's really impressive. So rated recovery points, it's properly rating.
42:35
Speaker 3: And the rear one so like closed loot. I'm evaluating
42:39
Speaker 3: the vehicle on Merit. Matt's evaluating the vehicle on Merit.
42:43
Speaker 3: On Merit, the vehicle is quite good, and that's the
42:45
Speaker 3: important thing. The aftermarket will address the headlights yeah point.
42:49
Speaker 3: When we saw it a few months before before release,
42:51
Speaker 3: I remember the engineers telling me I want to you know,
42:54
Speaker 3: I want to say it was a twenty five or
42:56
Speaker 3: fifty milimeters subframe lit drop you to lift vehicle, and
43:00
Speaker 3: it was capable of fitting thirty fives. They wouldn't have
43:03
Speaker 3: that fact or know that if it hadn't been if
43:07
Speaker 3: if they hadn't.
43:08
Speaker 2: Tried it so exactly.
43:09
Speaker 3: Don't forget there's the Special Vehicles Division, there's SVX or
43:13
Speaker 3: whatever they call it.
43:14
Speaker 2: Now there's gonna be fun. This is round one.
43:16
Speaker 1: There's gonna be fun stuff that's gonna come. I'm sure
43:19
Speaker 1: land Rover will address that, all right. So we're gonna
43:21
Speaker 1: move on to capacity, and that's just going to We're
43:24
Speaker 1: going to give you guys some specs because it's important.
43:27
Speaker 1: On capacity, I gave it a four point twenty five
43:31
Speaker 1: to four point five. It's class leading capacity, so I
43:34
Speaker 1: maybe even strongly on the four point five. But you've
43:37
Speaker 1: got up to a nineteen hundred pound payload. That's like
43:40
Speaker 1: nothing else in the class. It's nearly double the payload
43:43
Speaker 1: of a Wrangler. So you're actually buying a vehicle that
43:45
Speaker 1: can take some stuff. It's real, some real stuff.
43:49
Speaker 2: I mean like extra fuel, extra tires, equipment that you
43:54
Speaker 2: need to go remote. My Raptor had a one thousand
43:57
Speaker 2: pound pay Yeah, there you go. Yeah, so nearly twice
43:59
Speaker 2: the pay that's more than a ram Rebel. M hm.
44:03
Speaker 2: We just looked at those. It's nine one hundred pounds
44:05
Speaker 2: is like really impressive, guys.
44:07
Speaker 1: It's more than a two hundred series land Cruiser. It's
44:09
Speaker 1: more than anything in the class or even associated classes.
44:14
Speaker 1: It is very very good payload rating, which I give
44:17
Speaker 1: land Rover so much credit and respect for dynamic roofload
44:21
Speaker 1: rating of three hundred and seventy pounds, which is again
44:24
Speaker 1: class leading. There's nothing that's even close, which means full
44:29
Speaker 1: rack full roof ten. I'm not suggesting that people do that,
44:32
Speaker 1: by the way, but it has the capability of doing that,
44:34
Speaker 1: which means that land Rover has certified the vehicle to
44:37
Speaker 1: take that kind of roofload rating, which is with.
44:40
Speaker 2: Sword tests and everything. I means it has to pass
44:42
Speaker 2: all aggressive.
44:44
Speaker 1: With it has to pass all these dynamic tests with
44:47
Speaker 1: all that weight on top, which means if you don't
44:49
Speaker 1: run a bunch of weight on top, the vehicle is
44:51
Speaker 1: going to exceed your expectations on handling. And then the
44:54
Speaker 1: last one is towing eight two hundred pound towing capacity.
44:58
Speaker 1: It's better than any mid size truck. It rivals most
45:02
Speaker 1: half ton trucks, like full size half ton trucks. Nothing
45:05
Speaker 1: in the class that's even close, and I think.
45:08
Speaker 2: I get a sense that it will handle it quite
45:10
Speaker 2: well too.
45:11
Speaker 3: Yeah, longer wheelbase with that air suspension, depending on you know,
45:15
Speaker 3: your tongue weight for a trailer. It's you're not going
45:18
Speaker 3: to be squatting in the rearound like a traditional traditional spring.
45:22
Speaker 1: And the engineers shared with us that they built in
45:25
Speaker 1: all of the toe towing aids into the vehicles, so
45:28
Speaker 1: it's going to control trailer sway and also manage that
45:32
Speaker 1: tongue weight very well because of the air suspension. We're
45:34
Speaker 1: getting close to wrapping things up a little bit here,
45:36
Speaker 1: but we're going to talk real quickly about durability and reliability.
45:40
Speaker 1: It is difficult for Matt and I to rate this
45:43
Speaker 1: because these are pre production units and we also.
45:47
Speaker 2: Don't have a lot of time with the vehicles.
45:49
Speaker 1: I will talk about durability in the sense that you
45:52
Speaker 1: can if you look under the car and you look
45:54
Speaker 1: at the skid plating, and you look at the size
45:56
Speaker 1: of the arms, and you look the things that we
45:58
Speaker 1: did with it. Now it's not just that Matt did
46:02
Speaker 1: this trip and then I did this trip.
46:04
Speaker 2: There was I believe eight waves total waves, so these
46:07
Speaker 2: sizy terrain.
46:08
Speaker 1: Yeah, so these same vehicles are being abused over eight
46:11
Speaker 1: cycles and we did not see any structural component failures
46:15
Speaker 1: so far these vehicles, So I think the durability is
46:18
Speaker 1: actually going to be very good when it is compared
46:22
Speaker 1: to any.
46:22
Speaker 2: Landing before it.
46:23
Speaker 3: I mean, looking just I went and did a you know,
46:26
Speaker 3: kind of a curse research on land River forums for
46:28
Speaker 3: durability issues with l R three and l R four.
46:31
Speaker 3: You know, there's some concerns with you know, the fluid
46:34
Speaker 3: filled bush bushes that they're using, but those are all
46:37
Speaker 3: they're at one hundred thousand miles or more, a lot
46:41
Speaker 3: of vehicles have to have the bushings replaced at that junction.
46:43
Speaker 3: Bushings are larger on these vehicles, a larger, larger diameter.
46:47
Speaker 3: I mean, some of these things look like medium truck
46:49
Speaker 3: duty components. I mean they are, they're they're large. The
46:52
Speaker 3: lower control arm ball joint is something I have a
46:55
Speaker 3: figure on that's actually five millimeters larger than Discovery.
46:59
Speaker 2: And there's no real ablems with Discovery.
47:00
Speaker 3: I mean I've taken Discovery range over Sport, full size
47:04
Speaker 3: range Rover, through Holl's Revenge and Poison Spider and the
47:08
Speaker 3: waterfall and all that kind of stuff with no issues.
47:10
Speaker 1: They just they just don't they just don't break. I
47:12
Speaker 1: don't believe you're going to see durability issues with this vehicle.
47:15
Speaker 1: I think that there's the potential for it. So I
47:18
Speaker 1: don't want to stake a rating on it yet because
47:20
Speaker 1: we just don't We simply don't know yet. But I
47:22
Speaker 1: do believe that looking at the vehicle and seeing what
47:25
Speaker 1: it endured with a bunch of media drivers, I think
47:29
Speaker 1: it's I think it's pretty impressive. I mean I watched
47:31
Speaker 1: some people have some pretty major events with these cars
47:35
Speaker 1: where they weren't planning ahead as drivers and the vehicle
47:38
Speaker 1: survived it.
47:39
Speaker 2: So I think that that says a lot.
47:41
Speaker 3: But as you said, like we only really spent I
47:43
Speaker 3: mean three big days, but three big days is different
47:47
Speaker 3: than a year of having one and really evaluating it. Obviously,
47:52
Speaker 3: these cars are going to be looked after each night,
47:54
Speaker 3: and any small issues they're going to fix. THEYD have mechanics.
47:58
Speaker 3: I don't see any any cause for concern.
48:01
Speaker 1: Yeah, not on the durability side. On the reliability side,
48:04
Speaker 1: I think that's definitely the elephant in the room. It's
48:06
Speaker 1: something that we've got to spend a few minutes talking about.
48:08
Speaker 1: But I think there's a lot of good news on
48:10
Speaker 1: reliability with land Rover. I did some research on reliability
48:15
Speaker 1: around land Rover and from two thousand and three, which
48:19
Speaker 1: is the earliest JD Power report that I can find,
48:23
Speaker 1: and that is going to be the number of defects
48:25
Speaker 1: per one hundred vehicles. So in two thousand and three,
48:28
Speaker 1: land Rover had four hundred and forty one defects per
48:31
Speaker 1: one hundred vehicles, and it was the other than Kia,
48:36
Speaker 1: It had the worst reliability rating in the makeup. But
48:40
Speaker 1: if you look at twenty twenty, land Rover has reduced
48:44
Speaker 1: that number by over half, and if you compare it
48:48
Speaker 1: to Toyota from two thousand and three, So now this
48:50
Speaker 1: is stretching a little bit in a way.
48:52
Speaker 2: It's a bit of a weird thing, but it makes sense.
48:54
Speaker 2: I think.
48:54
Speaker 1: I think if everybody kind of listens to me for
48:57
Speaker 1: a moment and looks at it with an open because
49:00
Speaker 1: I don't want to have any confirmation bias here, but
49:03
Speaker 1: I do want to at least posset this consideration. In
49:06
Speaker 1: two thousand and three, Toyota had two hundred and one
49:09
Speaker 1: defects per one hundred vehicles. In two thy and twenty,
49:14
Speaker 1: land Rover has two hundred and twenty defects per one
49:16
Speaker 1: hundred vehicles. So that's only nine percent more than Toyota
49:20
Speaker 1: of nearly twenty years ago. But if you think about it,
49:24
Speaker 1: how much land Rover has improved, and if you think
49:26
Speaker 1: about a two thousand and three Tacoma, two thousand and
49:29
Speaker 1: three Gen three four Runner, two thousand and three hundred
49:33
Speaker 1: series land Cruiser, the Tundra.
49:35
Speaker 2: Which is extremely, very reliable.
49:38
Speaker 1: So you can almost say that a land Rover of
49:41
Speaker 1: today is as reliable as a Toyota of two.
49:45
Speaker 2: Thousand and three.
49:46
Speaker 1: Now that's not saying you take a two thousand and
49:48
Speaker 1: three Toyota and you're looking at the reliability twenty years later.
49:51
Speaker 2: No, if you compare apples to apples.
49:54
Speaker 1: And you're just changing the dates, they are nearly the
49:57
Speaker 1: same reliability rating. Now they've really improved and everybody's working
50:02
Speaker 1: on reliability. Everybody recognizes that it's a key selling attribute.
50:06
Speaker 3: I mean, for the swan song of the internal combustion engine,
50:09
Speaker 3: it better be reliable otherwise what was the point?
50:13
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, Yeah, So what's your summary on the vehicle.
50:17
Speaker 3: It's a good vehicle, I mean, class leading off road
50:20
Speaker 3: ride quality. I would say, the interior is very nice.
50:23
Speaker 3: The technical performance really surprised me. I was expecting a
50:27
Speaker 3: jacked up Discovery, and those multi stage airbags really are
50:30
Speaker 3: an innovation. And you know the world has changed. When
50:33
Speaker 3: the series came out in what nineteen forty eight, we
50:36
Speaker 3: had just defeated the Nazis, like King George was in
50:41
Speaker 3: you know, was the monarch. Most of the world hadn't
50:43
Speaker 3: even seen a vehicle.
50:45
Speaker 2: Right.
50:46
Speaker 3: Since then, we've gone to the Moon, We've done a
50:48
Speaker 3: lot of really cool stuff, and I think.
50:49
Speaker 1: And land Rover needs to be a different brand. They
50:51
Speaker 1: can't make the least expensive, most simple full drive anymore.
50:56
Speaker 3: It's expensive. It's always going to be an expensive place.
50:59
Speaker 3: We have the high Lux made in Thailand. We have
51:02
Speaker 3: Japanese manufacturing in the United States. Unless you've traveled extensively,
51:05
Speaker 3: you probably wouldn't have even seen a lot of the
51:07
Speaker 3: Chinese vehicles that are coming out. In Africa, you still
51:11
Speaker 3: see a lot of toyotas, but you're starting to see
51:13
Speaker 3: great walls and you're starting to see these things. Land
51:16
Speaker 3: Rover lost the utility market decades ago. It's a marvel
51:20
Speaker 3: that the Defender was made as long as it was,
51:24
Speaker 3: so that was a blessing in disguise. I look at
51:26
Speaker 3: the new Defender as being in sync the Defender Realistic
51:31
Speaker 3: should have had more updates and it wouldn't have needed
51:33
Speaker 3: to be as drastic, but yeah.
51:35
Speaker 1: It ended up being revolutionary, not evolutionary, and I think
51:39
Speaker 1: that that is why people are resisting. Some of the
51:43
Speaker 1: traditionalists are resisting the vehicle more. For me, it's got
51:47
Speaker 1: class leading payload, class leading driver comfort. It has got
51:52
Speaker 1: excellent technical terrain performance. I would say one of the
51:56
Speaker 1: wider breadths of capabilities, so higher speed on the dirt,
52:00
Speaker 1: lower speed technical terrain. If you look at the vehicle
52:03
Speaker 1: on its merits, I think it's one of the best
52:05
Speaker 1: land rovers ever made. I think that people get hung
52:08
Speaker 1: up on the name. I think if you get hung
52:11
Speaker 1: up on the name, just call it an LR six,
52:14
Speaker 1: call it whatever you want to call it, and judge
52:17
Speaker 1: the vehicle on its merits. And overall, I think that
52:20
Speaker 1: it's going to sell well. I think that if it
52:22
Speaker 1: proves to be reliable and durable, it will sell well
52:25
Speaker 1: in the long term.
52:26
Speaker 2: And I think the cons just a few.
52:28
Speaker 1: I think that this straight six model we're going to
52:30
Speaker 1: get isn't going to fit an eighteen inch wheel, and
52:32
Speaker 1: I'd like to see that's a bummer. I'd like to
52:33
Speaker 1: see land Rover address that. And because I think it's
52:36
Speaker 1: going to be really important for people's.
52:38
Speaker 3: Expectations are impossible to get off red tires for it.
52:42
Speaker 2: Yeah, so good ones.
52:43
Speaker 1: I think that's going to affect driver expectations. And then
52:46
Speaker 1: I think I'd like to see them improve the braking
52:48
Speaker 1: a little bit, prove the breake modulation a little bit,
52:51
Speaker 1: and then it's going to be interesting to see how
52:52
Speaker 1: the aftermarket responds. If the aftermarket responds favorably, and there's
52:55
Speaker 1: a bunch of cool parts for it, this thing's going
52:58
Speaker 1: to be a hit with a lot of folks.
52:59
Speaker 2: And and Matt and I are going to do our
53:01
Speaker 2: little we're going to do our little build sheets on
53:03
Speaker 2: these vehicles.
53:04
Speaker 1: You can see with you them if Matt was going
53:07
Speaker 1: to buy a Defender, what he would choose. You'll see
53:09
Speaker 1: that in the show notes, and then the same for me.
53:11
Speaker 1: And we're going to have some additional information in the
53:13
Speaker 1: show notes as well. And then keep an eye out
53:16
Speaker 1: on expedition portal dot com when the embargo lifts. The
53:19
Speaker 1: twenty fourth is twenty fifth of March, that's when this
53:22
Speaker 1: podcast is dropping. Look at expedition portal dot com for
53:26
Speaker 1: our very detailed overview and review of the vehicle, where
53:30
Speaker 1: we'll go into additional information more than what we did
53:33
Speaker 1: in this podcast, and we will.
53:34
Speaker 2: Talk to you.
53:35
Speaker 3: I do have one more calm one monk, and I've
53:38
Speaker 3: pointedly left it for the end. Land Rover, if you
53:41
Speaker 3: listen to this, why did you put plastic treadplate on
53:44
Speaker 3: the hood on the fenders that can't actually be stepped on?
53:50
Speaker 2: And I'm about We'll see you all later. Thank you
53:53
Speaker 2: for listening.