Land Rover Defender 130 - long-term review

I thought our eight-seater Defender 130 V8, weighing in at £117k as tested, was overkill. Land Rover thought ‘hold my beer’, because the Marine Blue 110 five-seat station wagon you see here is a Land Rover Classic Defender V8 by Works Bespoke – try saying that while you traverse a peat bog.

This is an offering from Land Rover Classic who take old Defenders built between 2012 and 2016 and remaster them with a 5.0-litre V8 sending 399bhp and 380lb ft of torque through an eight-speed ZF auto to all four wheels. And then charge extortionate amounts of money for it.

Before we get to the price tag, I should say there is a bewildering array of customisation options on offer – some of which we got to poke around in the spec room at LR Classic’s HQ when we went to pick up the car. You can literally match your paint to your favourite horse using Land Rover’s ‘match to sample’ service. There’s the option of 16in Wolf wheels or 18in Sawtooth alloys, and you can add roof-mounted spotlights or an LED light bar. You can have a Heritage, Standard or Adventure grill, and Recaro seats inside if you must, plus there’s a choice of eight split-tone leather colours for the interior.

The spec for the car we drove appears to be ‘yes’. Spotlights, external expedition cage, roof rack, heritage grille, 16in steelies, Liberty Blue and Perlino DuoTone interior… the list goes on, and so does the price tag - £214,225 before tax. That’s £257,070, or roughly 2.2 of our 130 V8s. I beg your pardon?

For that sort of money surely it drives night and day better than the standard car, or does something other than being very leathery and festooned in high-end kit. It does get Alcon brakes and upgraded suspension, which is reassuring, but a couple of corners in and it feels mildly dangerous. The engine and gearbox take a moment to work out what your planted right foot wants, then tear off in a volatile explosion of forward momentum, pitch and roll that feels like sailing a fishing trawler with a powerboat engine.

The steering is slow and ponderous, the body control is… well there isn’t any, so you’re left pointing it in the vague direction of intended travel and hoping for the best. Now I know that the Defender has long-since traded on the appeal of its old-school, analogue, heavily compromised driving experience, and I’m all for cars with big character, but here it’s gone full caricature. It looks lovely, from the outside at least, but once you’ve heard the price tag you can’t un-hear it and that takes it from being charming to a little crass. A trinket for the garage, rather than a Land Rover you’ll actually want to drive.

I do have one positive thing to say about this Marine Blue 110 five-seat Land Rover Classic Defender V8 station wagon by Works Bespoke – and breathe - it makes the 130 look like a total bargain. Jumping back into it after a day in the glitter-rolled old-timer, it’s a majestic thing to rumble along in. Throttle response measured in seconds not minutes, freakish body control, responsive steering plus, by comparison, the ride and refinement of a Rolls-Royce.

Moral of the story? Don’t be seduced by shiny things, use your head and spend £117k on a five-metre long, eight-seater V8 Land Rover. Or 2.2 of them if you can afford it.