This is the new eight-seat Land Rover Defender 130

By topgear, 31 May 2022

This is the new eight-seat Land Rover Defender 130

This is the new Land Rover Defender 130, the longest and, um, seat-iest new Defender yet revealed. In short, it’s a Defender that’s been Stretch Armstronged to house eight adult humans in one chassis.

Eight seats. Two up front, three in the middle, three in the back. Land Rover says the Defender’s body has been extended by 340mm to create that additional row of seating, itself benefitting from a “small stadium rise” (read: they sit a fraction higher than those in front).

There’s width for three adults to sit comfortably at the very back, we’re assured, lots of headroom because the car’s essentially a very capable rectangle with wheels, plus another sunroof and more rear ventilation.

With all three rows in place, there’s 398 litres of boot space left over, but fold rows two and three down and you’ve basically got a van – 2,291 litres of space to throw as many dogs as you can dream of back there.

Up front meanwhile, there’s a choice of two six-cylinder mild-hybrid petrols – the P300 (296bhp) and P400 (395bhp), along with a six-pot D300 diesel (296bhp). The quickest one’s the P400 of course, able to hit 62mph in 6.6secs.

All 130s get AWD and an eight-speed auto ‘box as standard, adaptive suspension and Terrain Response, and approach/departure/breakover angles of 37.5/28.5/27.8 degrees respectively. There’s a max wading depth of 900mm, and it can tow up to 3,000kg.

Enough numbers, let’s talk chrome detailing. It gets some, along with a 11.4in touchscreen as standard, fancy cabin purification, what3words navigation capability, a new red exterior colour, and a “boat tail-style uplift”.

Next up from Land Rover: the Defender 1000 Hen Party Edition…

TEXT Vijay Pattni

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