2020 Land Rover Defender Is Back and Better

• It has been years since we've seen a Defender, but Land Rover is introducing this all-new version at the Frankfurt auto show.
• There will be two wheelbases as in the past, using the familiar "90" and "110" nomenclature; the four-door 110 comes to U.S. buyers first, with the two-door 90 joining in late 2020.
• U.S. prices range from just over $50,000 to a high of more than $80,000 for the 110 model, and first deliveries can be expected in the spring.
  

It's hard to imagine a world without a Jeep Wrangler or one of the ultra-tough versions of the Toyota Land Cruiser that are still sold in the more rugged parts of the globe. But we've had a world without a Defender for a few years now: Land Rover allowed its brand-defining origin model to retire in 2016 without a replacement, an error that is only now being corrected with the arrival of an all-new model.

Of course, U.S. buyers have been denied the Defender for far longer; we lost our ability to buy the last version as long ago as 1997. The SUV was killed for the U.S. market by its lack of airbags or, indeed, any modern safety gear. The good news is that the new Defender will be coming to America from launch, and that it will also be a far more advanced offering than its charmingly crude predecessor.

The Defender won't be U.K. built; Land Rover is switching production to its plant in the Slovak Republic, which already makes the Discovery. But the new car's boxy styling and tall form are strongly reminiscent of the original, a vehicle that, as Land Rover's design director Gerry McGovern put it, "had a shape that even a child can draw." But while the basic shape has endured apart from a much shallower windshield angle, the look has become much more sleek and modern. "We need to recognize the past, but we also need to move on," McGovern said.

That means a visual sleekness to the exterior styling, with details including rear LED lights that are fully integrated into the bodywork and—to judge from the pre-production cars that Car and Driver was shown ahead of the launch—panel gaps measuring in fractions of an inch what the old Defender scored in inches. A rear-door-mounted spare-wheel carrier is a traditional touch, as is the decision to continue to offer two wheelbases distinguished by "90" and "110" branding. In the old Land Rover those numbers corresponded to the two models' wheelbases in inches, but the translation has been lost with this one: using Land Rover's numbers, the 90's wheelbase is now 101.9 inches, and the 110's is 119.0 inches.





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