We Tested Land Rover’s New Defender Octa. Here’s What to Know.

Being in the right place at the right time can be one of life’s great joys. In 2012, Robb Report contributor Ben Oliver and I competed in the Mille Miglia in a Jaguar XK120 once campaigned by Sir Stirling Moss. Rarely do you have such an immersive introduction to someone as sharing a car on an historic rally for three days. Happily, Ben is a superb driver, and we spent most of those thousand miles in hysterics. So I know that when his number comes up on my phone, it’s always for something worthwhile.

This time it was to drive another—but very different—product of the Jaguar Land Rover group. The new $153,625 Defender Octa (or $169,425 in the Edition One guise tested) is one of the most hotly anticipated performance cars of the year. And it really is a performance car, as I would find out at an early drive opportunity in South Africa.

I’ve had a long relationship with Land Rover. I learned to drive in old ones. I used lightweight, desert-specification, weapons-mounted versions in Iraq with the British Army, and for the last fifteen years have never been without one of its more comfortable civilian offerings. Running an estate in the Scottish Borders, I am part of that small minority of customers who use their Land Rovers’ off-road capabilities on a weekly basis.

So, what of the new Octa variant? The name is intended to conjure up the same sense of “hardened luxury” as that of a diamond: hard enough for a version of this car to compete in the Dakar next year. Out goes the venerable supercharged V-8, which has powered the last fifteen years of the brand’s performance versions, and in comes a twin-turbo 4.4-liter BMW V-8 pushing out 626 hp and 553 ft lbs of torque: the same numbers as the old BMW M5 CS.

The suspension has been just as radically revised, with a wider track, a higher ride height, and the adoption of the interlinked dampers used on the Range Rover Sport SV. There’s also quicker steering and bigger Brembo brakes. The aim is simply more of everything: much more, to match that price. Land Rover claims the Octa is much faster than other Defenders, reaching 62 mph in just 4.0 seconds. It also offers both near-flat on-road cornering and even greater axle articulation and abuse tolerance for off-road terrain.

My daily driver is currently a standard Defender, so I’m well-placed to spot the Octa upgrades. The wheel-arch extensions are hefty, the stance is spot-on, and other stylistic enhancements manage to walk the line between making the car look beefier and just cheapening it. There’s a smattering of carbon fiber inside and out, and the seats—unique to the new model—are superb: firm, but perfectly supportive over two days of very hard driving. The new Body and Soul audio system makes the seat backs vibrate like a subwoofer: that proved amusing for about three minutes before I turned it off. But the standard interior architecture is a triumph, so the less changed the better.

Our Octa was riding on the most aggressively off-road specific tires of the three options available to us, and on the perfectly surfaced highways of the Western Cape it was hard to get much of a feel for the Octa’s on-road handling as you can feel the big tread blocks moving around when leaning on the car.

The BMW engine has already found its way into the new Range Rover Sport, and although it’s a bit down on the character of the old supercharged unit, it more than makes up for it with the scale and immediacy of its power. The old Range Rover Sport SVR was so brash that you couldn’t go near the throttle without making every window in the zip code rattle. The Octa’s mill has the underlying menace and naughtiness of a very powerful engine but without being excessively loud, and makes the vehicle more usable as a result.

On the loose surfaces of the tracks over the Cederberg Mountains, it started to make real sense. The large red-diamond button on the steering wheel allows you to toggle through driving modes, but a long hold activates Octa mode which pushes more power rearwards and is designed for optimal acceleration on loose surfaces. I had to recalibrate both my brain and senses to understand how the broken rock, huge potholes, and corrugated terrain below were just being monstered by the car. What your eyes see passing under the bonnet just isn’t felt through the seat of the pants, and counter-intuitively, the more gas you give that big V-8, the better the car seems to ride on the worst surfaces imaginable. Hour after hour we pounded through the moonscape, epic views around every corner. By the end of the day, we had done over 120 miles off road on some properly hardcore terrain—all without strain on either the car or occupants.

We tested the low-speed rock-crawl mode through a series of rocky ravines. You realize how over-engineered the Octa is when its departure and lean angles are being put to the ultimate test, yet the vehicle takes the whole thing in its air-conditioned stride. Same on the high-speed off-road course Land Rover had laid out. Matt Becker, the former chassis guru for Lotus and now leading JLR’s dynamics, got the Octa sideways and repeatedly airborne, yet the vehicle’s demands on him were low enough to let him explain the workings of that new “6D” suspension as he drove.

The car sucked up more punishment than I can put into words: it just felt wrong, yet the man who knows it best was relentless in his punishment and pace. How would a standard Defender cope with the same level of abuse? Components would break sooner, and the comfort for passengers would be markedly worse.

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I’m not sure the Octa has any direct competition. The Range Rover Sport SVR and Aston Martin DBX are more refined and road focused. The Mercedes-AMG G63 has thunder and drama, and its off-road capability is epic, but I wouldn’t have wanted to bounce down the same roads in one. The Bentayga and Cullinan aren’t really cut out for this kind of work, so Land Rover seems to have found an untapped niche with this high-performance, extreme off-roader. One colleague described it as the off-road Porsche 911 GT3 RS, which is a better comparison than any of the more obvious candidates.

Land Rover has produced a piece of kit which is massively desirable, hugely capable, and possibly a swan song for vehicles of this type as we move into the EV era. As is the case with those who acquire other such focused cars, Octa owners will rarely get close to its full capabilities. Is it worth nearly double the cost of a well-specced standard Defender? The proof will be in the sales, but I give it a resounding yes. I have ordered one myself.

(Editor’s Note: Charles Innes-Ker, better known as Charlie Roxburghe, is the 11th Duke of Roxburghe. Educated at Eton, Newcastle University, and the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, he spent five years in the British Army, serving in the Blues and Royals—part of the Household Cavalry—in Iraq and at the garrison adjoining Windsor Castle. He then cofounded Capstar, an elite chauffeur and security service giving employment to veterans. In 2019, he inherited the dukedom and assumed the management of his ancestral home, Floors Castle in the Scottish Borders, and the 60,000-acre estate surrounding it.)

Click here for more photos of the Land Rover Defender Octa.