Land Rover Defender Heads to Dakar

If you thought the Land Rover Defender was just an overinflated relic of British agricultural engineering — all heritage and no real muscle — then grip that steering wheel tightly, because the Defender Octa is gearing up to take on the Dakar Rally. Not to tag along politely, but to compete. Properly. And behind the wheel? None other than the living legend himself: Stéphane Peterhansel. A man for whom sand dunes are more familiar than his own kitchen.

Three rally-spec Defender Octas are being unleashed onto the Moroccan sands, where they’re already being flogged like a herd of turbocharged camels. Under the bonnet roars a 4.4-litre twin-turbo V8, paired with a starter-generator, delivering 635 horsepower and 750 Nm of torque — which, to put it mildly, is more than the entire fishing industry of Hungary. It's the same engine you'll find in the road-going Octa, only now it's being asked to do things no Range Rover has ever dared even fantasise about. Add to that a 319 mm ground clearance and tyres the size of tectonic plates — 33 inches, to be precise.

But Land Rover isn’t stopping with just the race cars. They’re also building six special reconnaissance vehicles to scout out future routes. One imagines a very serious British gentleman sitting inside, peering over the desert with binoculars and muttering, “Yes, you’re likely to die just 200 metres that way. Perfect track.”

Oh, and let’s be clear — Land Rover isn’t just here to win. They’re here to be seen. Because the entire Dakar logistical machine — from the officials to the journos — will be ferried around in Defenders. It’s like a James Bond version of the Safari Club. The only things missing are a shaken-not-stirred Martini and a 7-inch infotainment screen that only works when the sky is cloudless and Mercury is in retrograde.