Defender of the Realm | PH Footnote
The curtain is about to come down on Land Rover's 70 years in military service - or is it?
Back in March, the MOD officially confirmed the retirement of its ‘iconic Land Rover fleet’. While ‘retirement’ is a fairly fluid term - there are reckoned to be more than 5,000 vehicles currently in service with the British military, and for a good while they are going nowhere - the announcement still signifies the end of an era. For more than 70 years, various iterations of Land Rover (but most recently the Defender in Wolf configuration) have been synonymous with the armed forces. So much so, it’s hard to imagine the British army in particular without its ‘extraordinary’ workhorse.
But times move on. Land Rover hasn’t officially been in the business of building the original Defender for a decade now (though its Classic division will not leave them alone). And while the Wolf (or XD as it was known to its maker) was significantly tougher than its civilian counterpart, and deliberately intended to be easily mendable, the passage of time must certainly have taken its toll. Little wonder, then, that at the event held to honour Land Rover’s legacy, the MOD simultaneously laid the groundwork for its replacement.
“I’m firing the starting gun on the replacement vehicle competition, seeking to put a modern vehicle in the hands of our personnel,” said Luke Pollard, the Minister for Defence Readiness and Industry. In truth, the Light Mobility Vehicle (LMV) programme has been rumbling on behind the scenes for a while, it having already issued a number of so-called RFIs (Request for Information) to mobilise any supplier who would care to throw its hat into the ring. Unsurprisingly, with such a large fleet to replace in the fullness of time, a bunch of them turned up to Bovington to showcase their wares.
As you might expect, this included a number of bespoke vehicles created with military service in mind, although as the initial tranche of 3,000 vehicles is likely to focus on conventional duties - and may well come with a 3.5-tonne weight limit - there are plenty of household names in the running, albeit most with arms industry partners. Ford, for example, has aligned itself with General Dynamics and Ricardo to offer a family of trucks based on the best-selling Ranger, while Toyota, in cahoots with Babcock, has presented not just a militarised version of the indomitable Hilux but also a veritable smorgasbord of converted Land Cruisers.
Based on the J70 platform, the latter certainly look the part - as does the SMT Defence-modified Ineos Quartermaster - though the prevalence of pickup trucks is a reminder not of their obvious utility, but also the helpful presence of a ladder frame chassis underneath. This is convenient not just for its innate strength and towing prowess, but also for its flexibility when additional conversions are almost certain to be required. After all, Land Rover, across all three Series models and the Wolf, produced everything from field ambulances to WMIK gun platforms.
So where does that leave Defender in the race to replace itself? Well, officially, and on the basis of ongoing client confidentiality, Land Rover isn’t saying anything publicly (yet) about whether it is offering the latest model as a contender for LMV - though photographic evidence would suggest that there is at least one ruggedised variant of Defender currently doing the rounds. Hard to quibble with the comparative toughness of the underlying architecture or its fundamental ability off-road (you don’t win any Dakar class with a cream puff) though whether or not it can still be exactly the do-it-all workhorse the MOD wants is open to question.
This is, after all, a very different Defender to the one that Land Rover successfully turned into a Wolf forty-odd years ago. It is a scrupulously modern SUV, with all the technical sophistication required to succeed in a segment coveted by the world's largest carmakers. When converting the OCTA to compete in Dakar, the engineers spoke at length about the need to reduce complexity for the sake of durability - a balancing act that would presumably need to go much further in a vehicle not frequently tended to by an extraordinarily well-equipped race team.
There is no pickup, of course. The closest Land Rover has come to turning its bestseller into a commercial vehicle is the Hard Top, essentially a Defender (90 or 110) with its back seats exchanged for a flat, rubberised loadspace, the rear windows boarded up and a fixed bulkhead separating you from whatever you’re hauling. Assuming you’re even slightly partial to the honest charm of driving a van - and don't need genuine Transit-sized capacity - it is a wonderful thing. Large enough to slide a Euro-pallet into the back, well-appointed enough upfront to pose as an upmarket SUV, and because the chassis underneath is no different (especially if you’ve opted to replace the standard coils with Land Rover’s air springs), it drives just like a Defender, too. Which is to say exceptionally well.
For any squaddie or matelot or bootneck subjected to the bumpiness and antiquated ergonomics of its predecessor, anything like it would obviously represent quite the upgrade. We hardly needed to drive one all the way to Cornwall to reflect on this self-evident point, but this being PH, we did anyway. Mostly to visit a remarkable location: RAF Davidstow Moor - or what’s left of it. Like umpteen sites that were briskly turned into Royal Air Force stations during the war (and despite a brief, enlivening stint as Davidstow Circuit in the ‘50s, when it actually hosted three Formula One races), it has slipped back into a curious kind of stasis, quiet now save for the occasional microlight and about a million sheep.
Unlike many similar places though, most of it is not behind fences or well hidden from view; the three (technically active) runways in the centre are best avoided unless you want to wear a model aeroplane for a hat, but the rest of the site is remarkably accessible. It is understandably popular with locals either learning to drive or walk a dog, but there is much for visitors to appreciate - especially if they’ve a penchant for dilapidated buildings (several of them Grade II listed), spectacular views of Rough Tor, or else just quietly imagining Bristol Beaufighters or Vickers Wellingtons taking to bruised skies in 1943, en route to scouring the Bay of Biscay for German U-boats.
In short, it’s fascinating (the nearby museums, run by volunteers and devoted to the broader subject are well worth visiting). And like any windswept, charmingly unkempt corner of the UK, the Defender looks right at home atop it. Perhaps not with the grizzled, makeshift assurance of its forbear, but thanks in part to the Tasman Blue paint and white contrast roof (not to mention the 18-inch steelies) of the UK press car, the Hard Top takes to the role of Coastal Command runaround as credibly as Tom Hardy did to Spitfire pilot.
That means precious little in the long run; the MOD is notorious for working its stipulations into book-length sagas, and it isn’t immediately clear how seriously JLR is taking the LMV programme. Emerging victorious from the bidding process certainly comes with its own kudos and would add many more units to the order book, but the Defender currently wants for neither - satisfying the existing customer demand is a full-time job for Land Rover. Perhaps, with the likes of Dakar under its belt and the additional development required, it feels it has no need to prove that its most famous off-roader is capable of withstanding even greater punishment. Of course, were it to decline the opportunity, that really would close the book on a 70-year legacy. And we all know how much Land Rover hates doing that...
Ineos would do a better job.
Out of curiosity, are military vehicles exempt from all the regulations regarding emissions and crash protection etc?
Presumably you can’t have a military vehicle shutting down because the coolant temp is too high when small arms fire takes out the radiator, or going into limp mode because it needs a DPF regen at the dealership.
If rules don t apply, it would be interesting to see if JLR could create a business case for producing 5000 new Wolf’s using all the old tooling. I suspect they would still meet the mod RFI spec.
Ineos would do a better job.
Size 13 boots, no issue in the slightest
Babcock's experience and working relationships with the MOD could create a service vehicle extremely relevant to modern needs. One that is well built and easy to work on in the field. Although having Toyota underpinnings could mean they wouldn't need to.
Ineos would do a better job.
Interesting to see if Jim Ratcliffe will throw even more money at it to get one over on JLR though.
Ineos would do a better job.
Interesting to see if Jim Ratcliffe will throw even more money at it to get one over on JLR though.
The Ineos has something like half the number of ECU’s, still a lot though.
Whatever the MOD go for it's bound to be an expensive cockup that takes ages to be introduced.
Licence built Beijing BJ2022 might be an idea but it would never happen.
Other than vw does anyone still make 4x4 vans? Merc used to do a sprinter and before that the 308d could be had with “proper” 4x4. Ford did a transit county with raised suspension and 4wd.
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