The story
The L663 is the argument that ended an argument. For years, purists insisted a Defender needed a ladder frame and beam axles. Land Rover built one with neither, gave it permanent four-wheel drive, a two-speed transfer box, locking differentials and 900 mm of wading depth, and sold it in America again. It is quicker, safer, quieter and more capable than the truck it replaced. It is also a modern JLR, which means the things that go wrong are sensors, software and converters rather than swivel seals.
BREAKING THE LINEAGE
Land Rover showed its hand early with the DC100 concept at the 2011 Frankfurt Motor Show, a 100-inch-wheelbase sketch of a modern Defender. The production truck, styled under Gerry McGovern, was unveiled at Frankfurt on 10 September 2019. It was the first all-new Defender since 1983 and, by Land Rover's account, shares no components or technology with its predecessor: the body is an aluminium monocoque on JLR's D7x platform, and the live axles are gone in favour of all-round independent suspension.
Production moved too. The L663 is built at JLR's plant in Nitra, Slovakia, which opened on 25 October 2018. Deliveries of the five-door 110 began in early 2020, the three-door 90 followed late that year, and the 130 later kept the 110's wheelbase but added a longer rear overhang for eight seats. For the classic Defender faithful in the US, the more important news was simpler: after the NAS trucks left in 1997, Land Rover was selling a Defender here again.
WHAT IT CAN ACTUALLY DO
The hardware list reads like a checklist written by someone who'd been told it would be soft. Permanent four-wheel drive through a ZF eight-speed automatic and a two-speed transfer case, a bevel-gear centre differential splitting torque 50/50 that you can lock, and a locking rear differential. Every 110 rides on air suspension, which lifts it to 291 mm of ground clearance; the 90 can have coils (about 225 mm) or air. Land Rover quotes 900 mm (35.4 in) of wading depth on air (850 mm on a coil-sprung 90), and Wade Sensing uses the cameras to show you how deep you are.
It is a working truck in the numbers that matter to overlanders, too. Land Rover quotes up to 3,500 kg of towing in the UK and up to 8,200 lb in the US, a 300 kg (661 lb) static roof load for a rooftop tent, and up to 370 lb of dynamic roof load on the 110 and 130 with off-road tyres and the Expedition Roof Rack. Unusually for a unibody, a 4,536 kg load-rated front winch is officially supported. Off-road it simply walks up things the Series trucks would have had to winch.
ENGINES, V8S AND THE OCTA
Engines are JLR's Ingenium family: a 2.0 turbo petrol P300, a 3.0 mild-hybrid straight-six P400, a P400e plug-in hybrid for the 110, and in Europe and Australia a run of diesels, first 2.0 four-cylinders and then 3.0 mild-hybrid sixes badged D200, D250, D300 and later D350. From 2021 the supercharged 5.0 V8 P525 added 518 bhp, and 300 all-black V8 Bond Editions marked the truck's role in No Time to Die.
Then Land Rover went further. The OCTA, announced in July 2024, uses BMW's 4.4-litre twin-turbo mild-hybrid V8 with 635 PS (626 hp in US trim) and claims 0–60 mph in 3.8 seconds. It gets hydraulically interlinked 6D Dynamics suspension, sits wider and higher than a standard Defender, and fits 33-inch tyres from the factory. Land Rover has since taken an OCTA-based rally-raid Defender, the D7X-R, to the Dakar, where it won the Stock category on its 2026 debut. The G-Class now has a genuine rival on every surface.
LIVING WITH IT
The motoring press loved the new truck; owners have been more mixed. A TFL review collected reader accounts of faults within the first few hundred miles, and Defender2.net's L663 Faults & Fixes board is busy with DC-DC converter failures on mild hybrids, DPF and EGR sensor codes on the diesels, steering knocks and recall campaigns. None of it is the stuff you fix with a 13 mm spanner in a field, and an independent diagnostic tool has become as common an accessory as a roof rack.
The 26MY facelift, unveiled on 28 May 2025, brought flush lights and a 13.1-inch screen but left the structure alone. In September 2026 the Defender Wolf Series II, built on the same D7x platform, was launched to bid for the UK Ministry of Defence's Light Mobility Vehicle tender, putting the name back where the Series started. If you want the old recipe of separate chassis and beam axles, the Ineos Grenadier exists precisely because this truck abandoned it.
SIDEBAR · SPECIAL EDITIONS
Bond cars, Camel yellow and a Lego Defender
The Bond Edition (2021) was 300 V8 Defenders in all black with 22-inch black wheels, blue calipers and 'Defender 007' badging, priced from £105,000. The 75th Anniversary Edition was painted Grasmere Green as a nod to HUE 166, the first pre-production Land Rover. The Trophy Edition, in Deep Sandglow Yellow or Keswick Green, is a homage to the Camel Trophy that the classic 110 made famous.
For North America, the 2023 30th Anniversary Edition was a 500-unit run of Fuji White Defender 110 P300s on white steel wheels with the Expedition roof rack and side ladder, marking 30 years since the NAS 110. And if you can't afford any of them, Lego's 2,573-piece Defender set of October 2019 is one of the largest sets it has made.
