Land Rover Defender OCTA | Is it the ultimate Defender?

What happens when you say to the clever people inside Land Rover's Special Vehicle Operations Department, have a go at their Defender? Well, this is what happens. This is the Land Rover Defender Octa. Now in this video we're going to take the car out onto the roads, but before we do that let's just talk about what this car is. Well, first things first, we've got a 4.4 litre twin turbocharged V8 up front producing around 626 horsepower, 750 newton metres of torque. 0-62 is dealt with in around 3.8 seconds and actually it differs depending on which tyres you have fitted. I mean, first of these wheels, 22 inch unique Octa alloy wheels. At the front end it's very recognisable as Defender just with a few tweaks. So we've got the bronze on the Defender badge up here. You've got a larger grille here and some more intakes down here which you don't see on the standard Defender. That is of course to feed that phenomenal V8 under the bonnet. We've got of course wider arches because the car is sitting on a 68mm wider track than the standard Defender. The car is also sitting 38mm higher than the standard Defender and this particular car is a truly fantastic spec. Finished in this Beresko grey with a satin wrap as well. Just looks incredible. Wide arches at the rear, again leading round to the rear of the car. And then just before we move round to the rear, I need to mention that the Octa emblem here is finished in titanium. Really cool little detail. On the rear they've actually had to change this rear bumper slightly because of the enormous 22-inch alloy wheel that fits on the back of this. It's the biggest actually fitted to any Land Rover ever. And we've still got the opening hatch which opens this way. But there's something actually really cool I'd never noticed before. In here there's a three-pin socket which actually has our drones plugged into at the minute but that's something really useful that I never knew about before. And something really unique to the Octa is this area here is all finished in gloss black. Inside the Octa there are a few really nice little additions. So you've got the Octa button down here which can change through your driving modes. We've got these illuminated shift paddles behind the steering wheel. We also have these body and sole seats which have a little sensor in here that can vibrate so you feel more at one with the car. We've got Land Rover's PIVI Pro screen in the middle. This one is the 11.3-inch screen with wireless Android Auto and Apple CarPlay. Your air conditioning controls and so on are all still physical buttons down here and are finished in this really lovely dark chrome effect. But in here it feels very familiar Defender and I think that is a really really good thing. But now's come the point in the video where we get to the exciting bit. I'm going to take this car out onto the roads and let's talk about what it's like to drive. Now welcome then to the driver's seat of the Land Rover Defender Octa and straight away I can tell you this is a very very special vehicle. So let's just talk about what's going on underneath us firstly. We've already obviously mentioned the engine but let's just recap. We've got a 4.4 litre twin turbocharged V8 producing around 626 horsepower, 750 newton meters of torque which means that the 0-62 mile an hour time is around 3.8 seconds which actually it differs depending on which tyres you have fitted. But the really special thing about this car is that it's fitted with the 6D chassis from the Range Rover Sport SV and actually an updated version of that system. And what that means is the suspension is hydraulically controlled. It's controlled by the car's brain so if one wheel does something it doesn't necessarily mean the rest will do something. The best example I can use so far, we're just currently pootling around, is that when you go over a speed hump you feel it at the front but then as the rear gets to the speed hump you don't really feel it and that's because the car has learned. It knows that we don't want to be, we don't want the undulation from that on the rear axle. It's amazing. The Octa sits 68mm wider on a wider track and 38mm higher. We've got, this car is even higher than the regular Defender but straight away I can notice going around this roundabout how flat this car feels on the road. It is actually just sensational for a car of this height and this size. It feels so easy, so usable on the road. Obviously we're not going particularly quick at the minute, we're just pootling around. But just doing that, the wet, I mean this suspension, it's the first time I've ever experienced the 6D suspension. It's incredible, it is genuinely amazing. I've never experienced anything like this. The way that it stays so flat on the road, it feels magical, it feels amazing and it's got this wonderful driving position that we've come to expect from Defenders. The view out is amazing, everything in here feels absolutely exceptional but really this car is just a jack of all trades. It does absolutely everything incredibly well. It's as I've mentioned at the start, what happens if you give that incredible team at Land Rover's Special Vehicle Operations within Land Rover a Defender and you say go and make something rather special and they have. The way this car feels on the road, this is a 600 horsepower plus car that when you're just pootling like we are doing now, I mean we're stopped at traffic lights, the engine's cut itself off, it doesn't feel like we've got an enormous V8 under the bonnet, it doesn't feel at low speeds, shouty, over the top. But you're constantly reminded that there is a rather special engine under the front. It doesn't feel rowdy, it doesn't feel antisocial when you're just moving at small speeds but you know it's there. You always know that that engine is there rumbling away in the background. But of course because this is a Defender, what this car can do on the road is matched by what it can do off-road. This is the ultimate in off-road mobility. The terrain response systems in this car are next level and even that 6D system is upgraded to the one that you get on the Range Rover Sport. So in that car it allows for one degrees of undulation on the chassis whereas in this it's three degrees. So actually you get even less body roll. This car just manages its height, its weight, its size like nothing I've ever driven and it can do that here on the road or on any terrain that you want to throw at it. But that's what it's like at the lower speeds. When you want to build up the revs and start to get a shift on, that engine wakes up. It turns from this rather sedate little shove in the back to this absolute tower of performance. The way that it pulls in this car, 3.8 seconds to 60 obviously is fast by any stretch of the imagination. But in a car like this, in a Defender, it's nothing short of incredible. But for me, yes, it's very, very fast in a straight line. I kind of expected that. But I keep coming back to it. For me, the special thing about this car is that 6D chassis control. It is genuinely amazing. We're on rather broken up, potholey, bit all over the place roads here but the car is so flat, so level and so composed over all of these horrible roads. This could well be the very perfect car for the UK. And that's because it handles our terrible roads in a way that I don't think I've experienced before. This chassis, this control, this 6D chassis, and I've mentioned it many times, is incredible. They've done an absolutely superb job on this. The Octa is better than I expected it was going to be. And of course, I knew it was going to be good. I've experienced a lot of Land Rover products in the past and really, really loved every single one. But the Octa, I think it's just a different league. It's amazing. It's superb, this car. And it does things that really it has no right to be able to do. But it does them with confidence, with ease, and just with such unrivaled capabilities. It's amazing. And it sounds actually really good when you start to step on it. So if you want any more information on the Land Rover Defender Octa, or any Land Rover for that matter, please get in contact with your local Land Rover retailer. Please like this video, subscribe to the channel for plenty more content to come. And I will see you guys again very, very soon.