Almost since the new Defender launched in 2019, rumors have swirled of a high-performance variant to rival vehicles like the Ford Bronco Raptor, Jeep Wrangler 392, and Mercedes-Benz AMG G-Class. After spotting test mules out and about for months, new rumors are talking about a July release of the "Defender Octa," the most high-performance, off-road beast Defender ever to come straight from the factory.
The common wisdom has always been that this vehicle would be called the Defender SVX, based on a 2017 concept of an off-road tuned Discovery SVX. That vehicle was killed off somewhere between realignments in Land Rover's strategy, the pandemic and related crises, and the rise of Defender as Land Rover's hardcore off-road sub-brand. However, the name "SVX" stuck in the public mind, parallelling the SVR designation used for high-performance Range Rovers.
The new branding strategy means it sounds like the SV brand will be a Range Rover-only moniker, and so the high-performance Defender nomenclature will go another way. All rumors right now point to the ultra-off-roader being called "Defender Octa." The name comes from the octahedron, an incredibly strong shape.
The rumor mill has been driven by Instagram, where the account newdefendermods has the most dirt. They're also saying that the new vehicle will have the BMW twin-turbo V8 engine that's used in the current Range Rovers, instead of the AJ-V8 engine that's used in the current Defender V8. Previous wisdom has suggested that the BMW motor wouldn't fit in the D7x platform that the Defender is built on (the same platform as the prior-generation Range Rovers), but we'll see once it hits the market. That would give the vehicle a screaming 626 horsepower, far more than the current model and in line with the Range Rover Sport SV. All of that horsepower will flow out through quad exhausts.
As seen in spy shots, the vehicle has a wider stance, with heavily extended fender flares to accommodate wider tires and a wider track. Some spy reports even mentioned the vehicle might have orange caution lighting, in line with American requirements for extremely wide cars. That wider track will supposedly be stabilized by 6D hydraulic roll control, keeping the thing planted on the trail and the road.
The rumor mill also says the Defender Octa will debut on July 11th. At that point, we will be almost five years from the Defender's initial debut at the September 2019 Frankfurt Auto Show, and this is bound to be the most significant upgrade yet to the product line.
Though this might not be the "ultra off-road" vehicle Land Rover purists would envision, this is the direction that all of the prime off-road vehicles are going for top-tier variants. It puts Land Rover in a camp with Ford, Jeep, and Mercedes -- and the way it's looking from these early spec sheets, it might be the only high-end, high-performance off-roader to thread the line between on- and off-road performance perfectly.
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