Land Rover must have forgotten who it is and what year it is. It introduced a new 350-horsepower diesel and eight-cylinder engine replacing the V6 engine

Considering how dedicated the British are to electric propulsion, it’s almost a surreal thing. But it’s no joke, at a time when Land Rover seems to be doing away with internal combustion engines, it’s betting on a powerful diesel and upsizing.

Land Rover, unlike its sister Jaguar, is not so obsessed with electric drive that it would ideally not want to offer anything other than electric cars tomorrow, but it is also burning for electrification. In 2021, he announced plans to introduce the first electric model in 3 years and five more in the next two years. That’s a real mold and it doesn’t seem like the British want to discount it – according to current information, the first novelty without a fuel tank will be presented during the second half of this year. However, how much the electric Range Rover will be in demand remains to be seen. Although the British talk about the dynamics of the eight-cylinder version and the 800-volt architecture that accelerates charging, they also indicated that the starting price will be around 4.5 million crowns.

At the dawn of a similar “electric revolution”, one would expect Land Rover to abandon internal combustion engines, but it must have forgotten who it is and what year it is. The company presented a redesigned Defender, the exterior of which has not changed, but under the hood there have been some very interesting features. The current version of the D300 equipped with a three-liter turbodiesel was replaced by the new D350 variant. The “soot producer” remains the same, but the power and torque have increased by 50 hp or 50 Nm. However, the British did not specify what dynamics are associated with 350 horses and 700 Nm.

Such a move is surprising and certainly does not indicate that things would be so hot again with that electric coup. Rather, it seems that Land Rover will remain faithful to diesels for a very long time, otherwise it would not invest a lot of money in a power unit that will sell at most a few thousand units per year. But this does not mean that Land Rover does nothing at all in the field of electrification.

Other currencies are associated with the end of the P400e hybrid version, which will be replaced by the P300e plug-in hybrid variant. Instead of a two-liter, a three-cylinder one-five will rotate over the front axle, which in combination with an electric motor will offer 309 horsepower. This device is already used by the automaker in the Discovery Sport and Range Rover Evoque models, but it does not raise the pulse of the masses. Another new version of the P425, which is a replacement for the P400 version and which comes with an eight-cylinder tuned to 425 hp, will take care of this to a greater extent.

It means that not only the hybridized two-liter four-cylinder engine is out of the game, but also the three-liter six-cylinder gasoline engine. However, Land Rover mentions that this will only happen in certain markets. It has not yet been specified whether the Czech one will be among them. So we can leave the engine compartment and head to other news. These include the arrival of captain’s chairs, which can be fitted to the Defender 130, i.e. the extended version with three rows of seats. The middle one will now offer higher comfort, as well as heating and cooling.

For one year, the Sedona Edition equipment will be available, which can be combined with the standard five-door, i.e. the Defender 110 version. It was named after the desert town in Arizona, whose topography can appear on the front hood for an additional fee. As standard, it has 22-inch cast wheels with a black surface or a reserve cover painted in the same color as the rest of the body. You can also treat yourself to external side racks, which enhance the off-road character of the car.

Other changes only correspond to differently assembled equipment and additional packages. In this regard, we can point to the Family Pack and Family Comfort Pack, where the first mentioned brings air conditioning for the third row of seats, and the second even adds heating. So even your children will no longer complain about weather fluctuations, when one day we are burning in our thirties, while the next we are again looking for winter jackets that have been stored away for a long time.

The British are unpredictable. In 2024, they decided to come up with a new, more powerful diesel and replace the gasoline six-cylinder with an eight-cylinder, although they announced a path in the opposite direction. Photo: Land Rover

Source: Land Rover

Petr Prokopec

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