Land Rover considering a Defender ute

Thursday, 18 February 2021

The Stuff Top Large SUV for 2020 is the Land Rover Defender.

Land Rover “always said” the Defender would become a family and, in a new interview with Autocar UK, said that the next member could take the form of a ute. Indeed a version with a tray was rumoured to be part of the plan originally, but the company backed away from it following the launch of the SUV versions.

However, the British publication spoke to Jaguar Land Rover’s executive director of vehicle programmes, Nick Collins, who said that a Defender ute is definitely possible and there is enough customer demand to justify building it.

Collins confirmed that “there were no structural limitations” to a Defender pick-up and that “you can make a pick-up from a monocoque”. Of course, all utes currently on sale in New Zealand use a ladder-frame chassis.

The Defender may be about to spawn a ute version.

That would certainly put the Defender ute in a unique position relative to the rest of the market in New Zealand, although a number of monocoque utes are on sale around the world, and we seem to be on the verge of a resurgence of small half-tonne monocoque utes.

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The Defender ute wouldn’t go after the Rangers and Hiluxes of the world, instead aiming at the more upmarket Gladiator.

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Land Rover’s ute would take aim at the Jeep Gladiator as well as the large American trucks that are becoming increasingly popular here. We would imagine the mass-market Rangers and Hiluxes of the world will be ignored in favour of the more upmarket buyers. It could also run up against Ineos’ Grenadier, which the company says will be getting a pickup version sooner or later too.

So far, Land Rover has released 90 and 110 short and long wheelbase versions of the Defender, either of which could be converted into a pick-up.

If it does come to fruition, it could come to New Zealand with either the 2.0-litre turbodiesel four-cylinder engine making 177kW/430Nm or the 3.0-litre petrol turbocharged straight-six with 298kW/550Nm.

Land Rover is also working on adding plug-in hybrid power to the Defender in the near future.