Styling
There's something brilliant about the Land Rover Defender 90. It's probably a lot to do with the fact hardly any manufacturers make three-door vehicles any longer, of any type, never mind a luxurious 4x4-SUV like this. Of course, it might be tempting to think it's a 'small' vehicle, because it looks a heck of a lot more compact than either its
110 or
130 relations. However, it's still more than 4.3 metres long (almost 4.6 metres when you factor in the rear-mounted spare wheel), 2.1 metres wide with its mirrors out and only 3cm shy of two metres tall as well, so the 90 is not actually small, per se.
Nevertheless, we think it looks smashing, although we'd probably tone down the overload of black detailing as part of an option pack (£975) on our Carpathian Grey example. That body colour, by the way, is a no-cost option on the P525 V8 90, but the matte-effect protective film over it isn't: it's a £4,000 extra. Also, the 22-inch 'Style 5098' five-arm alloys were rendered in Gloss Black, and we'd again (personally) go for a different colour... if only because the slightly 'murdered-out' look of our demo car (black roof, privacy glass, dark matte-finish grey, black detailing, black wheels) seemed to draw more attention to what is otherwise a super-stealthy performance machine.
Honestly, aside from the little 'V8' badges down on its door sills (which are surreptitious because they're finished in black and mounted on a black background, so you could easily miss them if you're not looking carefully, or the Landie is covered in off-roading clag on its lower portions) and the quad exhausts which are slightly downwards-angled at the rear, this high-speed Defender really doesn't give the game away as to what it is capable of. And we like that, so if we were ordering one then we'd be tempted to make it look as subtle as possible by doing away with the Extended Black Pack and black alloy wheels. Although there are only three colours available for the 90 V8 (white, black or grey), so your options are a
tad limited on visual spec. You can't, for instance, have this supercharged monster in Grasmere Green with a white roof and steelies to match. Which is a shame.
Interior
The excellent if no-nonsense interior of any Defender can be found in the one with the secret nuclear weapon hidden under its bonnet. You get some luxuries, like the Ebony Windsor leather with Kvadrat contrast textile sections for the upholstery, the Ebony suedecloth headlining and something called the Signature Interior Upgrade. However, there's still the panel of big, easy-to-press buttons for the climate and drive mode/4x4 options on the dash, the huge steering wheel is retained, and so is the grab handle built into the passenger-side fascia, which mean the workmanlike aspects of the Defender remain in this powerful variant. Yet they're by no means cheap or ugly characteristics of the passenger compartment, and with its slick 11.4-inch Pivi Pro infotainment screen, the 12.3-inch digital driver's cluster, a head-up display and a powerful Meridian surround sound system, there's enough good tech and flourishes of a premium kind in the 90 P525 to make its interior feel like a special place to spend some time.
Practicality
For a relatively big exterior, the 90 is not the most practical machine in the world. Swing open the heavy and wide-hinged rear door (which means don't park too close to the car/wall/bollard/other object behind you if you want to open it), and you're greeted with a tiny amount of boot space. The floor in here is 46cm long, but the way the rear seats are angled back means the shoulders and head restraints are very close to the tailgate, so Land Rover's claim of 297 litres of space here looks optimistic in the extreme. Fold the 60:40 split rear seats down and they don't even lie that flat, so the cargo area isn't the most inviting; presumably why seven-out-of-ten Defenders sold in the UK since it launched five years ago have been 110s, rather than 90s.
Even getting into the cabin is a bit of a faff, because the Defender stands tall and has a high sill, which can be a stretch to get into if you've got shorter legs. The 14-way electrically adjustable driver's seat is helpful, as it has two buttons on the side which can slide the seat forwards and backwards on its motor to make access to row two as generous as possible, but even with it rammed up against the steering wheel, there's not a huge aperture between seat back and the B-pillar of the 90, so coupled with the high step in it means getting into the back seats isn't the most straightforward job in the world. Once you're there, though, leg and headroom is surprisingly generous, the multiple windows (the 90 has the side skylights in the back, like a
classic Defender, and the V8 comes with a full, opening panoramic roof as well) allow light to flood into the back, so it's not a gloomy place to sit, and the high-mounted bench makes visibility good for those sitting in the rear. Thus, while it might not be as easy to access the back bench as it would be in a 110, there's enough room in the second row of the 90 to be able to call it a full five-seater, because the floor is also flat right the way through in the footwell.
Performance
The arrival of the mighty twin-turbo, 635hp Octa means that model takes over flagship duties for the entire Defender family, as you might expect of something costing at least £145,300. But, as we said in the review of the newcomer, it's only available as a 110. Whereas this venerable 5.0-litre supercharged V8, a JLR motor that has been in service in one form or another since 2009, is offered in all three body styles. Yes, you can still have the 110 with a supercharged V8 rather than BMW's 4.4-litre in the Octa, but it's restricted to 425hp in such circumstances.
The same 425hp specification of the 'AJ-V8 Gen III 5.0', to give it its official name, is also offered in both the 90 and the 130 models, but these two then get higher specifications in lieu of the Octa's 635hp mill. For the 130, the P500 (500hp) is the top of the shop, but the shorter 90 gets the full 525hp derivation, backed up with 625Nm of torque and powering all four wheels through an eight-speed transmission. Prior to the Octa's arrival, it was the 90 P525 which held the signal honour of 'Fastest Land Rover Defender' in production.
Weirdly, as mentioned during the Styling section, despite being 'only' a 90, this is not a lightweight vehicle. In fact, this short-wheelbase supercharged V8 is only 39kg trimmer than the Octa, that version based as it is on the longer 110 and packing an extra 110hp/175Nm of torque to compensate. Thus, the official 0-62mph time of the 90 P525 is 5.2 seconds, a good 1.2 seconds down on the Octa.
Not, though, that you will think this supercharged Defender is slow, because it patently isn't. It's a riot. The V8 is not as vocal at low revs in the 90 as the Octa's 4.4 is from the minute it fires up, but once you swing the older JLR engine past 3,500rpm the 5.0-litre motor starts to clear its throat and, from 5,000rpm right round to the 6,500rpm redline, it makes a proper old 'American muscle car' roar that's most intoxicating. But it's not all mouth and no trousers: there's plenty of acceleration to go with the noise. Roll-on is particularly effective, with more than a few fairly potent road cars taken by surprise at how fast the Land Rover was either a) bellowing away from them into the middle distance, or b) gamely sticking to their rear bumpers despite their best efforts, during our week at the wheel. True, the power delivery isn't quite as insistent and immense as it is in the Octa, and bizarrely the turbocharged engine feels more linear in its pick-up than the supercharged lump does, but there's still plenty of life in the old AJ-V8 dog yet, that's for sure.
There's also rampaging thirst, if you start enjoying its muscular manners on a regular basis. We did more than 642 miles in the 90 in around ten days of motoring, and a good portion of that was up and down the A1 at a steady cruise, hence the overall average speed we recorded of 43mph. Well, that test period elicited an overall 18.2mpg. Yikes! And don't think you'll get much more than that, because it'll just about tickle to 20mpg if you can resist its urge while on the motorway. On two particularly spirited drives on one of our all-time favourite roads (see section below), we were getting more like 15mpg from it. And with a 90-litre tank, the best indicated range we saw from the 90's trip computer was a relatively lowly 336 miles. So, perhaps to be expected, but the conclusion here is that a 2.5-tonne cube-shaped contrivance with a 525hp supercharged V8 petrol engine and four-wheel drive is not going to be good on fuel. At all.
Ride & Handling
Due to a long-held association with Scotland (namely, attending the University of Stirling at the end of the 20th century - yes,
we're old), we have an affinity with the Scottish Borders and some of the sensational roads which criss-cross the region. None more so than the A68, the alternative way to get from Darlington to Edinburgh if you don't fancy going up the A1 past Newcastle-upon-Tyne. This gem of a major road snakes over the Cheviot Hills through some spectacular scenery, and it really does have it all: great big straights, wide-open sweepers across well-sighted moorland expanses, nuggety sections and tight bends, crests and yumps and lumpen tarmac and smooth surfaces - the works, basically. In its 130-mile route from the market town of Darlo to the majestic capital of Scotland, it will put any car through the whole gamut of road-testing challenges. Even better, all the Gatsos that proliferated north of the border in the early 2000s seem to have been removed these days, although that might be because SPECs are possibly coming the A68's way... please, don't.
Anyway, we've had many an enjoyable drive on the A68 over the (way too many) years, and a few hairy ones too: took a
B7 Audi RS 4 Avant up there in the late 2000s and it monstered the slippery conditions of autumn like a dream; drove an early
F82 BMW M4 along the route in 2015 and realised Munich had made a massive mistake with the dynamics of its first turbocharged M3/M4 derivative. Well, happily, the Defender 90 V8 P525 avoids the same pitfall as the Beemer, and goes firmly into the 'brilliant' category from its A68 showings.
In many ways, it's the
perfect performance vehicle for a road as long and as varied as the A68, because it can cater to a wide variety of scenarios. It can blast along the straights in a fury of supercharged V8 sound, it can storm through quick overtake opportunities without any drama, its long-travel and supple suspension coupled with its super-high driving position means it can soak up the worst of the UK's lumps and bumps while the person at the wheel has unsurpassed visibility of the road ahead, and the sure-footedness of its four-square all-wheel-drive system means you can exploit as much performance from the 90's mega drivetrain as you dare in all weather conditions. Like a kind of short, cuboid Baja racer with UK licence plates, the supercharged P525 gets into a lovely, fast flow if you want it to.
However, empirically - and, indeed, objectively - it's not a patch on the Octa, or any other performance SUV with a V8 either. It has a
lot of suspension movement, which equates to huge amounts of rump-down pitch during hard acceleration and nose-dipping dive under heavy braking; there's a certain amusement to the way the 90 rears up at the front when you flatten the throttle, sure, but by the same token it's not the 'done thing' for high-end motors like this in the modern day to be this soft.
Obviously, that then bleeds into the handling, because the P525 leans markedly in the corners, so you have to wait patiently for the weight to transfer before you know exactly where the limits of grip on the Continental tyres are if you're going fast through the bends. Slower steering than the Octa and brakes which are good, but not quite as impeccable, all add up to make the 90 a far fuzzier performance proposition, and if you think that the ride will be better than the Octa as a result of the genteel chassis, think again - while it limited wind, tyre and suspension noise well and is acceptably comfortable on the motorway, the looser body control makes the P525 feel like it is wallowing and shimmying more over rougher surfaces, and as a result you experience a degree more 'head toss' when just travelling at 60mph on your typical country A- or B-road.
So is the 90 P525 a terrible mess? Well... no. It's not, actually. And it was probably only thrown into stark relief how squishy it is and how its refinement isn't quite operating at the same exalted level when driven back-to-back with the much more hardcore Octa. Indeed, we'd even go so far as to call the way this supercharged 90 drives 'joyous'. While it does roll a lot and the messages coming back to the driver are less crystal-clear than they are in its 635hp 110 relation, the P525 is a capable thing regardless. It just takes a bit more thought to drive it quickly on a challenging road, requires that touch more involvement from the person behind its wheel. And when you do commit to it, then it delivers a driving experience that isn't like any other high-performance SUV we can think of, Octa included, which perhaps makes it the most stand-out model in Land Rover's range. Had the company had the foresight to market it a little differently, about the only thing we can think of in the entire automotive sphere, past and present, that's anything remotely like the 90 P525 in terms of concept is the ultra-cool Mitsubishi Pajero Evo. And that only had a 280hp 3.5-litre V6, remember, not a stonking great supercharged V8 with more than 500hp.
Value
If you focus on the Land Rover Defender 90 P525's unique set of qualities and its monster level of performance, which will surprise a lot of other road users who are probably expecting it to accelerate like a D250 rather than an E39 BMW M5, then the list price of the V8 model won't put you off too much. But if you can recall the fact the old Defender was available from £27,800 as a Heritage 110 only nine years ago, then our test car's with-options ticket of £115,530 is going to blow your mind. In context, it's a good 30-grand cheaper than the Octa and it's a lot less money than a
Mercedes-AMG G 63 (even if the latter has two more doors than the Landie), while all the toys like the panoramic sunroof, high-power Meridian audio system, heated and cooled front seats and heated chairs in the rear, radar cruise, the head-up display, leather trim and so on; they're all standard-fit at this sort of level. As they should be. But still - the best part of £116k for a Defender 90? Ouch.
Verdict
In many respects, the Land Rover Defender 90 P525 is a flawed vehicle. It's too soft and roly-poly in the chassis department for the engine fitted, which makes it feel like a factory 'hot rod' rather than a proper performance 4x4 or SUV, so it's not quite as keyed-together and cohesive as the sublime Octa. And this supercharged V8 remains incredibly expensive to buy and run (16-18mpg at best), while the 90 body might look cool but it's not the last word in practicality.
However. We find ourselves liking the P525 almost as much as we did the 110 Octa, and surely there's something deeply refreshing about a world where the second-gen Defender can have
two petrol V8 models in its line-up which have such distinct and likeable characters? Also, as you can't have a '90 Octa' (apparently, the 6D suspension system doesn't fit into the short-wheelbase frame) then this supercharged model is the top dog of the three-door Defender realm. And for that reason, we adore the slightly bonkers way the P525 goes about its thunderous business. It's not perfect... but, for that reason, it might be all the better for it.
