We can all agree that SUVs have gotten really big in recent times, especially when compared to their predecessors. Moreover, this gigantic machine had also become extremely powerful, so much so that seeing someone produce more than 500 horses was not surprising.
The Land Rover Defender is one of the aforementioned SUVs that is big and powerful, with its latest V8 derivative taking center stage last year with its humble Hemi-powertrain setup. One example of stretching his legs on an infinite section of the German Autobahn, courtesy of AutoTopNL.
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Available in 90 and 110 bodies, the Defender V8 uses a supercharged 5.0-liter V8 that produces 518 horsepower (386 kilowatts) and 461 pound-feet (625 Newton-meters) of torque. These numbers are sent to the wheels via an eight-speed automatic transmission.
The Defender V8 is capable of sprinting from zero to 60 miles per hour (96 kilometers per hour) in 4.9 seconds, with a top speed of 149 mph (240 km/h). As seen in the video embedded at the top of this page, it’s a piece of cake for the two-ton SUV. Acceleration figures are also very close to what is on paper.
While this top speed just confirmed the Defender V8’s encouraging performance, there’s a hotter version to come, as hinted by JLR’s head of Special Vehicle Operations division, Michael van der Sande. This will be made possible through the purchase of the Bowler by Land Rover.
We’ve already seen the hotter Defender V8 prototype being tested on public roads, so it’s only a matter of time before we see the product in metal. The question now is: will the new hardcore V8 Defender make the Mercedes-AMG G63 run away? We have to wait and see.
