My initial thoughts? It’s REALY nice and feels solid, the best way I can describe it is that it rides like an H2 but is a 1000lb’s lighter.
Interior:
- Comfortable, I don’t see much driver fatigue on long trips like you would have in an old Defender or Series Landie.
- Quiet
- You’re no longer sitting on top of the steering wheel and peddles so my knees were thanking me.
- You don’t have to worry about destroying your elbow on the door when turning the wheel. (although side effect is the elbow out the window isn’t as comfortable.)
- Dashboard looks more to be inspired by a Series III dashboard than a Defender/110 dashboard.
- Heated AND cooled seats, it was 32C and humid when I drove it and the cooled seats were HEAVENLY.
Exterior:
- It’s bigger than you expect and it has a lot of presence.
- Either you love it or you hate it (I don’t hate it).
Over all thoughts:
I went in knowing I was going to like it but I was caught off guard by how much I do like it. I wanted to put a deposit down on one then and their but luckily my wife was the cooler head and voice of reason.
The Defender rides like an H2 without feeling lumbering, it has a solid truck feel but with none of the rattles the old Defender had.
I’m waiting on a Tasman blue P300 to come in this week or next because that’s closer to what I want (P300 comes with 18" wheels where as P400 is 20") and hopefully it isn’t sold before I can poke around it.
Final thoughts:
I think Land Rover has a winner on their hands because these are selling before or as soon as they hit the sales lot. Anyone who thinks it’s not a real Defender needs to either test drive one or keep quiet. This is a brilliant piece of machinery that will embarrass a stock old Defender both on and off road.