► Month 1 with the new V8 Defender
► And it’s supercharged
► Freedom with four wheels
The writer who made me want to be a writer, Dan Walsh, once wrote that you didn’t necessarily have to leave everything behind and ride around the world, as he did, to feel free. A motorcycle in your possession was enough. It was the potential to go – or, in Dan’s inimitable words: ‘A bike is a Beretta, half a mill in cash and a forged passport hidden under the floorboards. It’s an escape route.’
All of which must make the V8 supercharged Defender 130 several mill in cash and a wad of forged passports so thick you’d be hard pushed to nail the floorboards back down. It oozes the potential to go, its go-anywhere versatility hitting your central nervous system and flooding your mind with impossible dreams: dreams of living out of the thing through the European summer, picking fruit and snoozing in hammocks in cool pine forests through the heat of the day; of trundling through the deserts of North Africa, charting the stars like an Elizabethan navigator sailing oceans of sand; of picking your way through the Himalaya, your eyes red and your lips chapped with the concentration and the fierce high-altitude sunshine.
It’s these daydreams of course, together with that all-important elevated driving position, that saw the crossover/SUV/4×4 kill the MPV. But where an XC40 only hints at adventure, secretly praying you never do a Dan, the Defender broods, counting down the days until it can engage low range, pull itself up to full height on its air suspension and pit itself against the kind of terrain usually traversed only by the wind.
And now ‘my’ Defender is here, sitting on the driveway, studiously ignoring my home-charging wallbox and wondering why all I seem to do with it is put a cabin bag on the back seats and drive to Heathrow. It’s a magnificent looking machine; vast, purposeful like a freight locomotive and, it must be said, pretty much the antithesis of the Defender I always wanted. Back when the car was unveiled to the world, in 2019, CAR secured the only early access to the thing globally, shooting it for the cover of the October 2019 issue. That car was a 90 in green, with a white roof and white steel wheels. It looked fantastic; expensive yet utilitarian, modern yet timeless, monolithic yet characterful. In short, it looked sensational.
This 130 is different. Where the 90 of my dreams (almost certainly with diesel power, for 500 miles between fill-ups and do-able running costs) is almost humble and compromised in practical terms by its single pair of doors and tiny boot, the three-row V8 130 is none of these things. Up front, the 5.0-litre V8, massively muted compared with the bombast of, say, the old F-Type R, brings with it the promise of silken performance and 19mpg. Out back, the cabin just goes on forever, like a Dali-esque distortion of reality – all seats and space and seats and space and, back there somewhere I’m sure, Matthew McConaughey in a spacesuit yelling at me to let him out.
Big in the US (the best-of-both worlds 110 is the volume seller), the 130 can be ordered with five, seven or eight seats. The entry-level X-Dynamic SE with the gorgeous D350 engine costs from £81,585 and gives you two options: five seats and a vast boot or two rows of three back seats. But from X-Dynamic HSE upwards seven seats with ‘captain chairs’ (so big old seats with armrests and walkway between them to the third row becomes an option, and it’s a layout that’s tearing it up in America.
But we’re here for a good time, not a long time, so we’re in V8 territory, starting from £118,235. Effectively its own trim level, with 22-inch wheels, privacy glass and quad exhaust pipes, it offers any combination of seats and, remarkably for a 2.6-tonne truck longer than double RE, a 5.7sec 0-62mph time. Options to nudge our Carpathian Grey example to £126,310 include upgraded captain chairs (armrests with cupholders, winged headrests, heating and cooling – our 21-year-old is hopelessly in love with their almost embarrassing opulence) and the protective film that gives the paintwork a hope in hell on narrow, hedge-lined UK green lanes, a detachable tow bar (an editorial salary precludes speed boats, horse ownership or car racing as a hobby, sadly).
All set, then. Now to just sell the house, hand in my notice and go. See you on the road.
Logbook
Price: £118,235 (£126,310 as tested)
Performance: 4999cc V8, 493bhp, 5.7sec 0-62mph, 149mph
Efficiency: 19.7mpg (official), 18.7mpg (tested), 324g/km CO2
Energy cost: 32.0p per mile
Miles this month: 348
Total miles: 1314