Land Rover’s flagship off-roader is actually fun on-road, and feels even faster in the dirt
You’d probably think it crass to allude to the Ford Raptor in the same breath as a stiff-lipped Land Rover, but apparently daddy gets around. Born of the very same motorsport-engineering father, the Land Rover Defender Octa brings full-toss Baja-bashing to the high-class scene — and that isn’t even its most impressive new trick.
An unknown name with a rationale too embarrassingly posh to recite (and bearing a remedial-PR insistence that it be shouted OCTA in all-caps) Octa – indoor voice – enters as the now-standalone “Defender” sub-brand’s top product. Developed by Land Rover’s “SVO” (Special Vehicle Operations) crew responsible for the Range Rover Sport SV, the Octa targets both engineering and luxury advancements over the mainline models it derives from.
This active damping affords genuinely impressive road-holding not only in tight and aggressive cornering, but also in high-speed sweepers. Wound through fresh-paved mountain passes, the Octa feels large but unexpectedly responsive for an SUV — not least of all a 2.6-tonne (5,700-lb) ute on off-road tires. So composed is this semi-active suspension that it’s actually enjoyable to carve between tight bends, a rare feat even for many “sporting” SUVs on more tarmac-oriented tires.
Those 33-inch tires are themselves a new model, wrapping a 20-inch forged wheel. Whereas most manufacturers talk up their ‘bespoke’ fitment of what’s usually just an existing tire with (more or less) just their preference of compounds across its section, SVO specified a new three-ply Goodyear Wrangler all-terrain tire for the Octa. As demonstrated in this test, the tire is at once quiet and reasonably responsive on asphalt (excepting some unsurprising scrubbing if you dive into a bend at full-chicken) while survivable beyond Canadian highway speeds across jagged, penetrating surfaces — and without the need for several additional inches of absorbent sidewall.
Rover will also sell you a 22-inch wheel with all-seasons, but one should be embarrassed to squander such a rig on those.
The Octa’s now-quicker steering ratio further accentuates this delta. While feeling somewhat uncanny in the first few minutes at the hand, the combination of a more sporting ratio on an off-road setup is unconventional but proves effective and satisfying to wheel. This proves itself particularly welcome in high-speed off-road driving: chasing the horizon at and beyond highway speeds, trailing through tight chicanes, and holding the nose straight as offset disruptions try to kick the chassis left and right below you, this tight ratio keeps the left-right corrective sawing within a comfortable radius.
Our video review shows a few shakes of this quick-wristed toss, indulged in delighted communion with the Octa’s lively rear. Using the same fundamental e-diff clutching technology that’s been running Rovers’ centre and axle pumpkins for some time now, the Octa’s eponymous new drive mode can throw three quarters of its power to the tail for rip-roaring, pedal-steered indulgence; better still, those diff clutches see to it that both wheels churn in turn. Even under such mass, those 553 pound-feet and 626 horsepower will happily toss the tail with most (excepting roll control) nannies disabled or dialed back.
Even with this power untapped in silly modes, it unfortunately doesn’t sound much from out behind and never matches the old SVR AJ-V8’s brawny character. Like its 3.8-second Range Rover Sport SV sibling, the 4.0-second Octa fits the BMW S68-derived ‘NC11’ 4.4-litre twin-turbocharged V8. Mild 48-volt hybridization operates almost invisibly, starting the engine with a whisper and providing nudges of torque infill to offset what little turbo lag its ‘hot vee’ configuration leaves along that plateau of torque after 1,800 rpm.
Occasional full-footed overtakes can draw a little churn from up front, but this German V8 isn’t so much a burbler as it is a sleeper that doesn’t tell anyone when it’s woken up. Too bad too; a little exhaust noise might’ve helped cover the L663’s still-endemic creaks, squeaks, and rattles.
Impressive again, however, is the suspension’s role in steadying the tall rig as it deploys this understated power. The Octa imparts no sense of worry that it intends to topple over, even when playing off-kilter or on soft strata. Likewise, dialed back into low-range rock-crawling mode, this getup’s elimination of sway bars frees the Octa to more deeply articulate its independent suspension without the clutter of sway links or the disruption of a disconnect mechanism. Such seamless transition from squared-down steadiness to plunging articulation is truly commendable, and as demonstrated by the rapidly varying terrain of Western Cape, entirely realistic to want.
What’s fascinating about this crooked-mountained locale is the unique breadth and rapid variation in its specific terrain types. The South African province of Western Cape extends from sea level at the coast to ‘folded’ sandstone mountains as you head inland and northward. Yielding upward from tectonic collisions, these mountains show a 45-degree cross-section of crust stratum that once rested over a kilometre deep. As a result, the freshly exposed stones and soils that now erode down represent both hundreds of millions of years’ sedimentation, but also the interplay of a coastal climate.
Outside of an engineered test course, vehicles may seldom find such frequent changes to the materials underfoot. Piercing saw-toothed stones, soft soils, large sandstone formations, clays and hard-packed dirt, fine gravels, sand dunes. Deeply saturated valley flora turns to arid scrub within minutes, forgiving fertile surfaces return to punishing chassis abuse, clear-sighted gravel tracks to columns of unknowable dust that lingers for hundreds of metres between vehicles.
We may roll our eyes at Rovers’ boy-scout glut of over-prepared drive modes when testing at home, but most of them found their place here — and in rapid succession at that. Of course this test deliberately deviated from main routes, but the variety of conditions and obstacles condensed into “just” 600 kilometres’ testing is truly something for local wheelers to envy.
More than just enthusiast envy, it’s been a lesson. I’ve been rolling my eyes at new-gen Rovers for years; they’ve gone posh because that’s where the market is, but I’ve so desperately wished they’d stop going on about how these new L663s can do more than their forebears could when so few owners will ever risk their paint to a tree branch. While I recognize that throttle maps and differential clutching and metre-deep fording and all of that modern-engineered cleverness have their place, I’ve remained an obstinately romantic nostalgist.
This test has interrupted my romance, however. Personally, the summons to hop on a plane to South Africa on five hours’ notice forced me to cancel a date I’d been looking forward to on Thursday night (“Sorry, babe, I was really looking forward to tonight but I’ve wound up in Cape Town” sounds like the sort of excuse you drop when you aren’t even trying to be subtle). That’s already been sorted (they found it hot and mysterious; thanks, Defender) but the more lasting interruption is in the acceptance that running those 600-odd kilometres would have been really rather miserable in a romantic claptrap ‘proper’ Defender, or even one of the J70 Land Cruisers we saw so many of — and would have taken significantly longer at that.
Such steady ride, tailored traction response, air filtration and noise isolation, and even some fun handling on fresh-paved mountain roads; such a rounded combination simply didn’t exist in the past. That the Defender Octa could writhe itself unstuck on a dune or ascend and descend 40-degree rock obstacles with only a spotter, three-wheel contact, and no winching is really quite astonishing. It pains me to grant, not least of all to a carbon-garnished quarter-million-dollar ($177,100 ‘base’) bourgeois perversion of the solid-axled aluminum tractors I hold so near the heart, but this rig properly earns its place on the trail.
Thanks for that, daddy Raptor.
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