The Land Rover Defender OCTA Is A 626bhp Off-Road Animal

The new Land Rover Defender is a vehicle of many talents. If you want to off-road it, you can get one with steel wheels and knobbly tyres. If you want to go very quickly making lots of noise, you can get one with a stonking supercharged V8.

Until now, though, there’s not really been a factory option that combines those two things. That changes, though, with this: the Defender OCTA, which is being pitched as the most capable, exclusive Defender yet.

Under the bonnet is a V8, but not the old supercharged lump that powers other eight-pot Defs. Instead, it’s a 4.4-litre BMW twin-turbo item – the same one that’s in the super new Range Rover Sport SV. Like in that car, it kicks out some 626bhp and 553lb ft of torque. Driving all four wheels (natch) through an eight-speed auto, it’ll hit 62mph in four seconds flat.

Where it gets really special, though, is underneath: it gets trick ‘6D Dynamics’ suspension, which hydraulically interlinks all four corners of the suspension, allowing the OCTA to stay much more level in cornering and when hammering across rough terrain. It sits 28mm higher and 68mm wider than any other Defender.

The steering rack, meanwhile, is the quickest ever fitted to a Defender, and the front brakes are a mighty 400mm in diameter to keep everything in check. That’s all well and good if you’re pounding across a desert, but for less high-speed off-roading situations, it has the usual suite of Land Rover drive modes and off-road gadgetry.

The tyres are a massive 33 inches, and you can order OCTA-specific all-terrain rubber from Goodyear. You’ll need to go for some road-friendly all seasons if you want to hit its top speed of 155mph, though.

Inside, the OCTA gets the incredibly cool-sounding option of Ultrafabrics upholstery, which is 30 per cent lighter than regular leather. That clads some new sports seats with built-in speaker systems.

The OCTA name, by the way, comes from the octahedral shape of a diamond, a shape which appears throughout the car.

Available as a mid-length 110, the Defender OCTA will go on sale soon, in a series of exclusive ‘releases’ – just 1,070 will come to the UK during its first year of production, all of which will be the £160,800 Edition One. Later, the ‘standard’ version will go on sale at £145,300.