2025 Land Rover Defender OCTA | UK Review

We were smitten in South Africa - how about on the grimy, wintry reality of Scottish B roads?

Most Defender OCTAs will join a sizeable car collection. As you might fairly expect when this Edition One tops £160,000 and is, on the surface of it, quite a niche proposition. But it seems a shame more people won’t attempt to run this as their only car. I think it would be surprisingly good at it.

You can thank a rich development process for that. Here’s a sizeable 4x4 that had to prove itself not only on tougher proving grounds than usual to earn its off-roading chops, but around the ‘Ring to rubber-stamp its track performance. It’d be ludicrous if Porsche also put in its GT car development miles through a river or over sand dunes, but here we are, the result being not only the quickest factory Land Rover yet – by a long shot – but the gnarliest too.

Luckily one of the men behind it, Rob Patching, is truly one of us. He’s spent 15 years making Land Rovers handle and often spends the bulk of his working week on track. Despite this, he still has room in his life for a self-built K Series Caterham and a drift-tuned BMW 130i. Two cars whose combined weight still sits under an OCTA’s claimed 2,585kg… Mind, Nic C has already driven it at length in South Africa and come home smitten. Now it’s my turn around the less glamorous but still spectacular Scottish Borders and thus some usefully grimy and pockmarked British roads.

Several of which you might assume are too small for a car like this. Up front is a 635hp, 553lb ft 4.4-litre twin-turbo V8, powerful enough to shift this five-by-two-metre leviathan to 60mph in under four seconds. Ensuring it can transfer that power into performance a little more successfully than the stock Defender V8 below it is a whole smorgasbord of chassis tech, the highlights being wider tracks (necessitating the steroidal, 68mm-stockier bodywork) and the hydraulically interlinked, semi-active 6D Dynamics system shared with the Range Rover Sport SV. While we’d have loved to try the car on its most road-biased Michelin tyre option, JLR chose to stick with the Goodyear Wrangler knobblies due to how gnarly its off-road demos would get.

The surprise is that they’re pretty able on-road. They’re limited to 100mph, refinement isn’t perfect and they perhaps forgo a millisecond or two in communication urgency as you slice into turns. But grip is predictable and the OCTA’s quicker steering rack – 13.7:1 vs the 17.6:1 of its base car – feels like a big leap in the right direction for the Defender as a driving device. It keys the OCTA into corners neatly with no need for heavier four-wheel steer and while its extra eagerness is infused with a mite of nervous energy on these tyres (which I suspect the Michelins would iron out), it’d be nice to see this as an option on lesser Defenders in the coming years. Nerdy, but it’d make them a nicer companion for those who like driving. Though it does exaggerate the size of its steering wheel which now feels like a serving platter in your hands, its scale mismatched to the newfound keenness.

You get a bunch of driving modes to choose from courtesy of a fiddly dial ‘n’ screen combo or the chintzy, oversized diamond button on the steering wheel (its emblem subtly hinting at the origins of the OCTA name). Auto helps this waft along like any other Defender, the drivetrain muted though still with the mellifluous burble of a V8 at low stress. Dynamic stiffens and sharpens things up and opens up the exhausts. OCTA mode is where the fun’s at, though, boasting the ability to send 85 per cent of power to the rear axle and a more relaxed tune of ABS to allow more slip off-road.

Even on-road it ups the interactivity of the car and proves useful for bringing 635hp and ungodly traction into focus at reasonably everyday speeds. Crucially it smothers potholes, shrugs off sudden dips or compressions and feels primed and ready to respond to the barked pace-notes these Jim Clark Rally stages sometimes echo to. On such narrow lanes it invariably feels huge and domineering – well over two metres wide with its elephant-ear mirrors – but you can drive safe in the knowledge you can easily yield for traffic on single-track surfaces thanks to its rufty-tufty tyres and enormous ground clearance.

You might feel obliged to do people a favour, too, given the sheer size and aggression of the thing. Though I do think its exterior upgrades veer more towards the subtle ‘tip of the nose’ variety and with Defenders selling by the bucketload at the moment – 110,000 globally in 2024 alone, comfortably making it LR’s bestseller – perhaps familiarity might stifle contempt.

But however successful the OCTA makeover, this continues to feel like a lot of car to fling down a road and closed courses are undoubtedly the best place to fully uncork one. Luckily Land Rover agrees and while its prescribed circuit isn’t a chance to indulge that newly dramatic rear torque bias with lavish slides, it’s a prime opportunity to sample what that 6D suspension can soak up.

An initial stint following a diesel Defender 110 guide proves the 553lb ft might of the OCTA; while the driver in front engages the low-range ‘box to clamber up steep inclines, their helpful voice on the radio informs me I can stay high-range and simply leather it. Later, with the diesel parked up and an instructor with a stomach of steel ensconced in the OCTA beside me, I’m encouraged to maintain full throttle over hundreds of metres of bumps, ruts and mud, the OCTA slingshotting across the sort of surfaces that would beach most humble SUVs. Little surprise there’ll be one at the Dakar next year – I can think of no better playground for it.

It seems fair to assume plenty of these will be limited to rumbling around urban environs like the Mercedes-AMG G63 they intend to nick sales from. But the tangible depth of its engineering is abundantly clear and snorting around the block would do an injustice to the sophistication beneath its skin. Neat detail touches only increase the impression; What3Words embedded into the native sat nav for more precise off-grid adventures and the red illumination of the paddle-shifters’ glass tips when you engage OCTA mode help make this car feel thoroughly considered. Even if the rattles of this very young press car interior suggest more superficial areas of build quality might still be left wanting. And who wants to imagine the cost of repairing (or replacing) a 6D Dynamics system many years and off-road jaunts down the line?

Initial buyers may find such concerns trifling. Even ‘entry’ OCTA trim commands more than twice the price of a base diesel though with fewer than 1,000 arriving with UK buyers in its first year of production, it’ll remain reasonably niche within its vast-selling model line. But fuel bills and its almighty dimensions aside, it doesn’t demand the same compromise over a stock Defender as a GT3 RS does beside a Carrera. There are still five seats and a big boot. Select the more tarmac-biased rubber and this might just tick off everything you need in a car – even if most will never give it that opportunity.

SPECIFICATION | 2025 LAND ROVER DEFENDER OCTA

Engine: 4,395cc twin-turbo V8, mild-hybrid
Transmission: 8-speed auto, all-wheel drive
Power (hp): 635
Torque (lb ft): 553 (590 with launch control)
0-62mph: 4.0 seconds (3.8 with launch control)
Top speed: 155mph (all-terrain tyres limited to 100mph)
Weight: 2,585kg (EU)
MPG: 21.0 (WLTP)
CO2: 304g/km (WLTP)
Price: £145,300 base, £160,800 for Edition One

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Cryssys

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