It Looks Like A New Land Rover Defender Pick-Up Will Happen

The new Land Rover Defender might carry the same name as its predecessor, but it’s a different kind of vehicle. It’s aiming for a much broader remit, while still being great at all the traditional mud-plugging Landie shenanigans.

With that in mind, we were never expecting Land Rover to hack off the rear of the new Defender to create a pick-up truck workhorse. The British company might just make one, though, judging by some very strong hints by Defender project head Nick Collins.

According to Top Gear, he said of a pick-up Defender: “It is structurally possible…And there is demand”. He concluded, “We won’t comment on future plans…But watch this space”. Pretty telling, no?

A Defender pick-up, as imagined above by X-Tomi design, would sit nicely alongside the hardtop commercial version of the vehicle (below) Land Rover revealed in 2019. This simpler, coil-sprung version of the Defender proves LR is still interested in this more utilitarian corner of the market, even the bulk of the overall volume will be in swankier passenger derivatives.

One factor that might be nudging Land Rover towards bolstering the more practical end of the Defender range is the Ineos Grenadier. The Magna Steyr-developed vehicle intends to carry on where the old one left off (it doesn’t even look that different to the real deal), and yes, there will be a pick-up version.