2023 Land Rover Defender 130 Spy Shot: eight-seat SUV made available.
The modern Land Rover Defender is already available in most regions in the two-door Defender 90 and four-door Defender 110 body styles. At least one more, and possibly several more, body variants will be introduced soon.
Nick Collins, Land Rover's head of Defender, hinted in February that a pickup truck could be on the way, and now a spy prototype of an extended SUV-bodied version called the Defender 130 has surfaced. images have been released.
The model is expected to go on sale next year as a 2023 model, including in the U.S.
As seen in the images, the Defender 130 will have a wheelbase roughly equal to the 119 inches of the Defender 110. The increase in length will come at the expense of an elongated rear end, which is expected to increase the overall length to just over 200 inches. The numerical element of the various Defender names goes back to the original Defender, which roughly corresponded to the length of the wheelbase.
Plans for the Defender 130 first surfaced in 2019, even before the modern Defender; a leaked internal presentation posted on Disco4 Forums revealed that the vehicle would have a third row of seats and seating for up to eight people. The modern Defender 110 also has a third row of seats, but the third row has only two small seats suitable only for small children.
The modern Defender has been on sale in the United States since last summer, initially only in the Defender 110 version. The short-wheelbase Defender 90 went on sale in the spring, and this summer both body styles received a 518-horsepower V8 engine.
Other powertrains offered in the U.S. include a 2.0-liter inline turbo four with 296 hp. Above it is a 3.0-liter turbocharged inline six-cylinder hybrid with 395 hp. Transmission is an eight-speed automatic, with a two-speed transfer case and permanent all-wheel drive system as standard. In other markets, a plug-in hybrid variant is also available, combining a 2.0-liter engine with an electric motor and a maximum output of 398 hp. It can also be equipped with a 19.2 kWh battery to increase driving range.
Updates will come as development progresses.
