This new Defender has beaten all sales records to be super successful.
The Land Rover Defender sales success around the globe has been confirmed. This all new has quickly moved up to the Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) sales charts since it launch and even with Covid-19 knocking the economy around the globe and also Malaysia, its demand has out-stripped supply.
In fact, this new Land Rover Defender is at the moment, the company’s second-best-selling model globally, just a smidgen behind the 2020 Range Rover Evoque.
JLR’s sales figures show a hefty 17,194 Defenders delivered in quarter 2 of 2021, which is just 400 plus units lower than the Range Rover Evoque’s 17,622 units.
For JLR, this reborn iconic nameplate is on target to become the company’s top-selling vehicle overtaking the Range Rover Evoque by the end of this year.
This new Defender was also the only JLR product to grow its sales over the last two quarters which is during a time in which JLR’s total sales volume was affected by the pandemic.
Obviously this was because of the continued global semiconductor shortage which affected almost all car manufacturers around the globe.
The new Land Rover purpose-engineered ‘D7x’ architecture is based on a lightweight aluminum monocoque construction to create the stiffest body structure Land Rover has ever produced. It is three times stiffer than traditional body-on-frame designs, providing ideal foundations for the fully-independent suspension.
During development testing, prototype models have covered hundreds of thousands of miles across some of the harshest environments on earth, ranging from the 50-degree Celsius heat of the desert and sub 40-degree Celsius cold of the Arctic to altitudes above 10,000-ft in the Rocky Mountains in Colorado.
The Defender is truly capable of great things and the front and rear recovery points can withstand up to 10 and nine tons of pull respectively. During its global development program, Land Rover engineers were able to complete iconic trails in Moab, Utah, for the first time, including Hell’s Revenge, Poison Spider and Steel Bender trails.
Closer to home, the Defender met the Land Rover brand’s toughest durability standards during testing at the global design and engineering headquarters at Gaydon. As part of these extreme events, the Defender withstood repeated 7.9-in (200mm) curb strikes at 25mph (40km/h).
To ensure the electrical systems are as rugged and robust as the rest of the vehicle, the Defender is the first new Land Rover vehicle to benefit from enhanced validation testing, the result of a USD45 million (£37m) investment in new facilities and infrastructure.
This is probably why this new Defender has won so many global awards including the MotorTrend 2021 SUV of the Year which it received in October 2020, beating 28 other new SUV’s from around the world.
The Land Rover Defender is available in Malaysia with a choice of 2 powertrains:
- 2.0L turbocharged straight 4 petrol engine with 300PS for RM798,800.
- 3.0L turbocharged straight 6 petrol engine + a mild hybrid system with 400PS for RM998,800.
