Land Rover makes most powerful Defender yet with 525 hp and V8 engine

LONDON: Land Rover is now among the many manufacturers targeting an all-electric line-up in the coming years.

But before the British maker phases out its internal combustion engines, they want to give the Defender one last chance to flex some old-fashioned muscle with a newly fitted V8.

It's anything but cheap. According to the manufacturer, the price of the three-door Defender 90 starts at €117,600 (RM589,000) in Europe, while the five-door Defender 110 costs €121,200 (RM607,000).

Then again, the achieved performance is unheard of in the Defender, and with 5 litres of displacement and supercharging, this mud-plugger has increased to an unprecedented 525hp.

The V8 engine, a good 25 per cent more powerful than the previous top engine, meanwhile thrusts drivers into the back of their seat with a maximum torque of 625 Nm, according to the manufacturer.

All this enables driving performance that was previously unseen in a Defender: It now accelerates from 0 to 100kph in 5.2 seconds and the top speed is 240kph.

The steep pricetag certainly won't come with a clean conscience in terms of environmental impact, however, and Land Rover puts fuel consumption at 12.8 litres/100km and CO2 emissions at 290 g/km.

Although the Defender is on a par with the GLE 63 AMG from Mercedes or the X5M from BMW in terms of price and performance, Land Rover isn't giving the V8 Defenders a bodybuilder redesign. Apart from the 22-inch wheels and the four-pipe exhaust system, the looks of the most powerful Defender to date are comparatively tame.