Fresh from getting filthy with Bowler's new
Land Rover Defender Challenge
rally car, PH got chance to sit down with the man behind the project to discuss the concept, the "next step" for wannabe Rally Raiders and
EXR-S
Road legal EXR-S will be bonkers but brill
Drew Bowler might have been building
bonkers rally cars
for nearly 30 years, but his passion for the sport and developing new products is still infectious. He wants to share rallying with new people.
"The really nice thing about the Defender Challenge is that people only need to drive it for 10 to 20 minutes and their ability, their confidence and their speed grows quite quickly. You're still busy in the car though - and that's what we wanted. If you're going to learn the trade then don't learn in something that's going to hide your weaknesses. Let's see what the weaknesses are and let's deal with them."
The next step
A relatively affordable £50,000 will get you to the start line, but once they've been bitten by the bug - and after a few seasons of racing - Bowler fully expects Challenge entrants to step up to the next level. As yet though, there isn't one. Together, that's what Bowler and Land Rover are working on, explains Drew:
Defender Challenge product of closer relationship
"Where do people go after the Defender Challenge? We've got two directions for them then: we're planning a next step, a middle step that's not in place yet. We can imagine that to go from the Defender into the EXR might be still too big a jump.
"People can use the Defender Challenge car to go and do some slower, shorter dune events and get some experience in the sand - you could stay in that car for a while, or you can potentially go up to a 110 version. That then becomes a useable car for the Dakar. If you like that and want to go on, then you get into the EXR."
The key question is, will the car slated to slot in above the Defender Challenge still be a diesel? Going by Bowler's lengthy pause before responding to PH's probe, potentially not.
"... the middle step will still be Defender-based and it'll certainly still use a Jaguar-Land Rover power unit - if I've got my passionate head on, it would use a bigger engine. But with anything like this where it's a staged progression we'd need to look at it and see what would fit the requirement. So yes, I'd love to say we're putting a big engine it in. We'll see."
What's not to like about a car that does this?
It'll certainly help inject some life into the firm's all-singing, all-dancing EXR Dakar challenger, as currently it can't actually be used in the UK. Bowler explains:
"The EXR is a proper Rally Raid car, so you can't use it here - there aren't many dunes in the UK. Believe me, I've looked. It'll help our EXR-S road car, too. It'll act as a halo product for Bowler and show what we can do and what we're about.
"The market's slightly different with the EXR-S though. That came from people asking us for a road-going rally car, but as we've got into it and started to actually understand the customer profile, it's less to do with rallying and more to do with a supercar that's got all-terrain performance."
It's different to a 911 GT3 then, with most owners wanting as close a likeness to the 911 Cup racer as possible. Even with three cars already in production Bowler is tweaking the detail in response to feedback. According to Drew, "the initial cars were too raw, too motorsport orientated." PH can vouch for that.
As a result the Derbyshire firm is adding more refinement - "but never luxury", as Bowler reinforces - building what people will want and will buy.
Bowler's rally cars are spectacular things
The Defender Challenge is going to give Bowler a big boost and potentially further its penetration into the road market. If you've got a Defender and want some go-faster bits, Bowler will happily oblige, helped by the fact that the Challenge car's powertrain is comprised almost entirely of standard parts.
"We've increased cylinder pressures, but we've not gone wild with the engine. In fact, it's on totally standard internals. Stage one is calibration and remap, while stage two looks at the turbo, intercoolers, exhaust, induction - it's still very much on the ancillary side of the engine."
Best of all, it means if you don't want to get your hands dirty between events, you can get your Defender Challenge serviced at your local dealer. Now, you can't say that about a GT3 Cup car.