I can’t quite make up my mind about tres leches cake. On the surface, it’s a delightful dessert. But for me, there’s a fundamental issue: it’s a wet cake. Cake isn’t supposed to be wet, even if it’s a sponge, and whenever it comes up in conversation, I’m ambivalent to the point of mild irritation.
The new Land Rover Defender is much like a tres leches cake. Mention it, and I’m immediately conflicted. Even though we’re now five years into the new Defender’s existence, I still cling to my own ideas of what a Defender should be—much like how I think a cake soaked in milk isn’t really a cake—it’s more of a pudding. But just as I’ll reluctantly take a bite of tres leches cake when it’s plopped down in front of me, I’ll begrudgingly take the new Defender for a drive, like the Land Rover Defender X-Dynamic model I’m writing about today.
For the record, I’m one of those pesky car journalists who doesn’t believe the new Defender deserves the Defender name. Apart from a few design cues meant to placate the masses, there’s not a single similarity between the original Defender and the new machine. That’s why enthusiasts snicker and call it the “Pretender” and why an entire car company (INEOS) was started to build what Jerry McGovern refused to design.
A Conflicted Identity
Five years on, and the new Land Rover Defender X-Dynamic seems more confused than ever. How do you mix a fake diamond plate insert between the fender and the hood with gloss-black, 22-inch wheels and call it a Defender? It’s like putting a Rolex badge on a digital Casio, and boy, does the new Defender like to think it’s a Rolex—timeless, durable, mechanical—something you could pass down through generations. But in reality, their JD Power Dependability scores tell the opposite, with Land Rover finishing last in the most recent study, with 273 problems per 100 vehicles.
Whereas the original Defender could be beat up around Africa for decades, receiving little more than an occasional oil change, the new Defender gives the impression that it might struggle with a suburban commute. The model we drove had a sporadic failure of the central infotainment system and would randomly alert me that the key had left the vehicle, despite the key certainly being in the vehicle. Multiple friends of mine have seen theirs spend more time in the shop than in their driveway, which is less than ideal.
Off-Road Brilliance
And yet, here I am, conflicted. On one hand, the Defender’s off-road capabilities are irrefutable. I’ve driven it through the dense woods of North Carolina at Land Rover’s Biltmore Proving Grounds, the pastoral countryside of England, the washboard roads of Arizona, and the remote, vast expanses of Northern Namibia. It’s the real deal when the pavement ends, and Land Rover’s Terrain Response system is the kind of over-engineered wizardry that makes even the most complex obstacles feel manageable. You can pick your line with surgical precision, the suspension swallowing rocks, ruts, and washouts with nonchalance. It’s a hoot.
Functionally, it has all the right angles to ensure it doesn’t get hung up where it isn’t supposed to. Even with two wheels in the air, it manages forward and rearward movement by the millimeter. The Defender doesn’t just survive off-road—it thrives. It’s genuinely one of my favorite modern 4x4s in these conditions.
On-Road Frustrations
But driving the new Defender on-road is more than a bit annoying. Sure, it has a great interior (more on that later), but the precise throttle and brake modulation I’ve come to love off-road just doesn’t translate to the pavement. The powertrain is nothing short of jumpy, with the 3.0-liter, 48V mild-hybrid, electrically-supercharged, turbo-charged straight-six coming off as overcomplicated and antithetical to the ethos of the original Defender. The first inch of the throttle pedal is useless, and then you get absolutely everything. It’s the kind of driving experience that makes you feel a bit seasick. It just feels like the engineers who did the driveline tuning on the new Defender decided that “good enough” was plenty for the suburbanites who end up buying these things.
Interior: A Mixed Bag
Inside, the Defender feels functional, like it’s genuinely meant for rugged use—as much as a nearly $90,000 vehicle can be, I suppose. You plop down into the driver’s seat, throw your belongings into the dash, and grip a spoked steering wheel that mixes old with new. The driving position is perfect—pure Land Rover. However, the seats sit on a box platform that juts out awkwardly, making it a challenge to find space for your feet. This, and the large center console, makes an otherwise spacious interior feel cramped. But let’s go ahead and use the “but it’s a Defender” excuse here—because otherwise, the new Defender has one of my favorite interiors on the market today.
Comfort Where It Counts
After a few days in the new Defender, there’s one thing you do end up appreciating—the ride quality. On and off the road, it doesn’t disappoint. Separation cracks on pavement become non-existent. That harsh curb in front of my office just doesn’t seem so bad anymore. I’m most excited that the washouts I’m too lazy to fill in on my decomposed granite driveway have disappeared, which means I’ve actually found a solution to fixing that—albeit an $87,000 solution.
I’ll go a step further and compare the ride quality to a bit of an unusual machine: the Rolls-Royce Wraith. The Defender offers the same cushioned if not wallowy, ride quality in a much more practical and easy-to-live-with package.
The Verdict
So, where does that leave the new Defender? For all its faults, it excels in the very area its name implies—defending its reputation as an off-road legend. And while it’s far from the mechanical simplicity of its forebear, it offers a level of capability that few modern SUVs can match. But on pavement, it’s a different story. For me, the new Land Rover Defender X-Dynamic is like tres leches cake—undeniably enjoyable in the right context but never quite what I expect or want.
Read more: Land Rover Introduces the Defender Octa Promising Extreme Performance On- and Off-Road
Images: Matt Scott
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