I’ve always had a love-hate relationship with offroad vehicles.
Mud plugging monsters such as the Unimog, the Viking and anything by Oshkosh are cool because they’re so brutal and single minded, but the more roadgoing variety seem to be conspicuously out of place – more so as they adopt a widening range of shiny trinkets. There’s one vehicle that until recently seemed to buck this trend, and that’s the humble Land Rover Defender. It may be ugly and extremely spartan inside but it has character and grit and that’s something I always appreciate.
As as result I was extremely happy to be given the chance to take one of these beasties off road at All Terrain Services‘ training centre in Rutland. This is a custom made facility sharing land with a golf club in this tiny county to the east of Leicestershire, catering for fun stuff as well as more serious driver training. Even the approach along a very broken driveway suggests that one is not in for a gentle ride – something the assorted golfists would doubtless find amusing, although their choice of apparel always led me to question their sense of humour anyway, but I digress.
The unmistakeable sound of a torquey diesel mated to a stone age powertrain heralds the arrival of our extremely genial trainer Gilly, piloting a white Defender 110 – the stalwart of the off road scene, and the prime choice for anyone who needs to lug sheep up 45 degree hills. Jumping in reveals that this one has leather seats – oh, such excess – but in all other respects is a fine example of the solid, trusty, rough-as-a-badger’s-bum Landie we’ve come to know and love. A quick trundle up the access path and we’re stationary in a field facing a wide array of slightly worrying hills, banks and bombholes. Gilly runs through the function of the low/high range shifter and with its all conquering diff lock position, explains a little about how the power transfer works, drops it into low range and then sets off towards the nearest bank.. and straight up it at a troubling angle. As the axles twist, the wheels spin in mid-air, and we go precisely nowhere Gilly suggests that we ty the diff lock. A quick tap sideways on the magical shift lever results in a solid THUNK from somewhere amidships, and all of a sudden we’re doing a creditable impression of a mountain goat, up and over the edge. With this setting engaged the power is divided 50/50 between the front and rear axles, so you’ll always have at least one wheel powered on each.
The engine is running at relatively high revs even though we’re only trundling at a snails pace – such is the wonder of low range – so Gilly backs off, hauls the wheel around and trundles towards what can only be described as the edge of the world. Where one would expect to see a slow roll-off into a dip there is precisely nothing. I feel it impolite to point this out, so just double check my seatbelt and try to think of some good last words. Gilly suddenly remembers to ask if she’s mentioned ‘thumbs up’, and holds both of hers aloft to reveal that one is at a noticeably different angle to the other. This, she says, is a warning to keep them outside of the steering wheel in case the vehicle hits an obstruction and the wheel is wrenched from your grip. Ah.
Fortunately (or not, as the case may turn out to be) there’s little time to reflect on this as we’re now about to plunge into oblivion. Only it doesn’t quite work out like that. Gilly has her feet off the pedals and our Landie is simply crawling forwards over the edge with the speed and force of continental drift. As the wheels hook over, the beast just keeps rolling using its own engine braking to take us safely down to the bottom. With little time to consider this, Gilly builds the revs back up and we begin scramble up the other side of the hole in which we’ve found ourselves.. which is at least the equal of the slope we’ve just tackled. It’s as if the world has suddenly rotated around to leave us on the flat. This is a serious piece of kit and shows absolute no sign of being flustered or stressed – I doubt I could even climb up this slope. Gilly mentions that a colleague likes the maxim ‘if you can’t walk it, don’t drive it’ but she gleefully reveals that she doesn’t agree, and suddenly jams on the brakes.
We’re now stopped halfway up a hill and the engine has stalled. Believe me, it took some doing as well – torque is not in short supply here. Gilly wanted to demonstrate how to get out of a hill stall while we had the chance; she stomps on the footbrake (’the handbrake won’t hold two tons on just the back wheels, so we don’t trust it’), engages reverse, releases the clutch and brake so we’re held stationary in gear and then fires up the ignition. With no fuss whatsoever we’re now gently bimbling backwards at the same rate at which we climbed. Gilly waits until we’re partly up the other slope to get the weight behind the direction of travel, grabs first and then guns it up the hill again and into bright sunlight.
By now I’m absolutely sold on this thing. It may be agricultural and have fewer home comforts than Guantanamo Bay, but the way it makes absolute mincemeat of amazing terrain without so much as a raised eyebrow simply beggars belief. I want a go.
The driving position is surprisingly comfortable, with a great view of that bluff bonnet festooned with stamped out kickplates. It’s a bit of a stretch to the gearstick, and the feel of the shift has more in common with a broomstick, but no matter. Brake clutch, low range, first, ignition, handbrake off, find the biting point and slowly release the brake – the torque in this lower range sets us off nice and smoothly without even needing any gas. Gilly starts to call out directions using the various markers strung around the course as guides, and we’re ducking and diving, scrambling up mind boggling inclines, skirting banks at angles that suggest we’re about to fall over sideways and generally thumbing our noses at physics. We also get to try a few little set pieces, such as a precise scramble across a pair of log rails designed to mimic a makeshift canyon crossing and a trek along a gully cut with alternating left and right potholes designed to twist the axles in opposite directions. Once the diff lock is engaged, we might as well be pulling into the driveway after a gentle cruise home – our trusty steed simply plods along oblivious to the chaos below its wheels.
All too soon, the session is over. I clamber down out of the 110, take a good step back and feel I’m seeing it with a new pair of eyes. This is truly the king of off roaders – a noble, honest servant with a placid demeanor, yet fire in its belly and balls of steel. It’s a truly magnificent creature and I now fully understand why you’d want to own one despite its apparent shortcomings.
The simple truth is that those shortcomings are only an issue if you try to make it do something it simply wasn’t designed to do. This is not a shopping car, it wasn’t built to take the kids to school, and it won’t enjoy a 300 mile motorway trek on the way to your holiday home. You’d be absolutely barking to have one of these as your daily driver because the harshness will drive you spare. However, if you find yourself stuck out in inhospitable terrain and you can request one vehicle to trek out and carry you back to safety, you’d be mad to hope for anything else. The humble Land Rover isn’t just a vehicle – it’s a calling, capable of affirming your life and then saving it ten minutes later when you’ve run out of ideas.
Oh, and I also understand now why Landie fanciers poke such scorn at soft roaders. To paraphrase the Cat from Red Dwarf – ‘you either got it, or you don’t.. and you guys.. you ain’t even close’
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