I first encountered a Land Rover Defender – professionally – at the same time the original Tomb Raider movie came out – 2001 – and I have to say I was less than thrilled with it – the Defender, not with Angeline Jolie’s cinematographic portrayal of Lara Croft.
At collection, I was given a briefing as to what had been updated from the last model and was told the audio system had been upgraded, the steering wheel was thicker and the manual air conditioning vents/louvres were easier to operate.
I thought the Land Rover man was being funny. He wasn’t.
So here we are 20 or so years later and the Defender has turned up in my driveway again with a mass of publicity bumph explaining how this is a completely new and radical departure from what has gone before.
The basic consideration of a Defender is that it is unmistakeably recognisable as a Defender. And whatever my personal opinion may be to that effect, you change this at the risk of losing the Land Rover Loyal.
However… the 2021 is a vehicle which can’t piss off the loyalists because it still looks Defenderish and it brings a smile to the dial of newcomers to the fold, because it’s so damn good to drive.
OK, the front-end treatment sort of resembles a Thomas the Tank Engine cast member with those hooded LED headlights and slightly “I’m English and grumpy about the weather’’ lower grille, but damn, if the overall look doesn’t grow on you.  
With Land Rover’s 70-year heritage, there is no reason to suspect the 4WD ability of the Defender could ever be questioned – given the plethora of digitalised settings for adjusting; the height, the engine and transmission performance for different terrains, traction control, differentials, other various bits of electronic trickery and the unique monocoque body construction.
Say whaaat? Monocoque? Isn’t body-on-frame design stronger? Apparently not. Defender’s monocoque body – in addition to being lighter and more fuel friendly – has three times the torsional rigidity of body-on-frame.
LR also reckons the monocoque design makes for a more engaging drive experience and in this, they are not wrong.
You can put massive miles on a Land Rover Defender – crawling over the Sahara, Outer Mongolia, the foothills of Nepal and Auckland’s southern motorway (comparable in quality and peril), but you won’t get tired.
In fact, the Defender is one of those vehicles your significant other may have to lever you out of with a set of tyre irons. Live with it? Heck, you could live in it!   
One of the previous model’s issues was its tendency to, just as you were getting used to new ways of occupying space, poke you painfully in the most uncomfortable places. Not anymore. I’d go so far as to call the new Defender positively luxurious.
 And everything was so easy to find. There’s no more cramped interior here.
You have acres of shoulder space, seating for a comfortably generous five folk until you find you have seven seats in the 110 – and not those dickey afterthought seats for Frodo and Bilbo Baggins either. These are long Leg-olas seats, sittable in even for Striders.  
There are seven Defenders to choose from: three of those are Defender 90s (the short ones) and the remaining four the 110 (long one) models. Both 90s and 110s have S, SE and X trims, but there is also an entry level 110 allowing for an under-$90k entry model.