We had the chance to join an off road desert safari run with a classic Defender 110.
In the remote section of Turkiye, they still use the classic Defender 110 for safari tours and there is a reason for this.
Tough terrain seems to do little to this well built 4×4 vehicle. Reliability needs to be high as it is a workhorse for almost 300 days in a year.
Must have easy maintenance and parts availability. Able to look really good in pictures for the tourists to enjoy their memories with the safari.
This is why there are dozens of these old and tough Defenders’s being used around Cappadocia by Safari Tour operators taking tourists sometimes twice or even three times a day for 90 minute drives across very rugged terrain.
During the 4×4 safari, you visit the Pigeon Valley, the Ortahisar Valley, the Mustafa Pasa Village and the Red Valley.
Pigeon Valley is a lovely place where certain cave dwellings have been painted with white to attract the birds for their valuable droppings.
Ortahisar is famous for its friendly inhabitants, beautiful stone houses, narrow streets and pretty churches together with the castle-like rock formation.
Interestingly, Cappadocia is a semi-arid region in central Turkey, is known for its distinctive “fairy chimneys,” tall, cone-shaped rock formations clustered in Monks Valley, Göreme and elsewhere.
Other notables sites include Bronze Age homes carved into valley walls by troglodytes (cave dwellers) and later used as refuges by early Christians.
So, if you are planning a visit to Cappadocia in Turkiye, make sure you book yourself a Safari Tour with a classic Defender and have the right outfit because you will be climbing in and out of this high riding vehicle at each and every location and you might even want to climb the rock formations that you visit to get that Instagram ready picture.
In case you did not know this, Turkiye’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in late 2021 issued a communique, tweaking the country’s internationally recognized name from “Turkey” to Turkiye.
“The word Turkiye represents and expresses the culture, civilization, and values of the Turkish nation in the best way,” said the communique.
In case you were wondering, Land Rover (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd launched the last of the classic Land Rover Defender 110 Double Cab pick-up for RM148,888 for Peninsular Malaysia and RM152,388 for Sabah and Sarawak (excluding insurance). There were no wagon 5-door models offered for sale.
Taking into account that a used ex-military 15-year-old unit sells for about RM45,000, this looks like a good deal for a new unit with full warranty. Add to the fact that it will go almost everywhere (like in this pic below).
