The Land Rover Defender has bowed out of production after 68 years and over two million copies made. Here are some interesting facts about the venerable off-roader.
Now that the Defender has marched off into the sunset, to be replaced at some undetermined time in the future by an all-new model, here are 14 things you might not know about the rugged four-wheel drive.
- 2,016,933 Land Rover Defenders have been built.
- Each one contains around 7,000 parts.
- Requires 56 hours to build — a Discovery Sport takes only 48 hours.
- Production began in 1948.
- Owners have included Queen Elizabeth II, Sir Winston Churchill, and Steve McQueen.
- Last built at Jaguar Land Rover’s factory in Solihull, UK, alongside the Range Rover, Range Rover Sport, Land Rover Discovery, Jaguar XE and Jaguar F-Pace.
- Originally known as the Series I Land Rover.
- Major updates include 1958’s Series II, which introduced a new diesel engine and design, and 1971’s Series III.
- The Defender name was first used in 1990.
- Variants are commonly referred to by their wheelbase in inches, eg. Land Rover Defender 110.
- Series I Land Rover in 1948 had a list price of £450, and was powered by a 50hp/37kW 1.6-liter engine.
- The most expensive Defender is the 2,000,000th Defender, which sold at auction in 2015 for £400,000.
- All soft top Defenders share two parts with the 1948 original: hood cleats and the underbody support strut.
- The Defender’s most popular year? 1971 when around 56,000 were made.
