Land Rover Jumps, Crashes And Rolls The Defender To Prove Its Toughness

The purpose of advertising is to make you want the thing being advertised. The right colours, the right slogan, the right subliminal messages. Well, right now we want a Land Rover Defender and a muddy field.

This commercial has been released to highlight Land Rover’s involvement in the next James Bond movie, No Time to Die. A trio of Defenders, alongside a further three Triumph Scrambler-based bikes, appears into shot in a behind-the-scenes style at first; you can see the ramps they launch from.

There’s a bit of clever editing as they land and we’re not suggesting the massive launch was one that the Defender really can survive and drive onwards, but the car that does finally continue the journey has clearly taken a stiff landing regardless.

All the vehicles, focusing on the Defenders, then start ploughing over and through obstacles; mounds of dirt, grassy lips onto steeper slopes, and along a river. There’s now a helicopter for some reason. Because Bond, we assume.

The rest of the video is all jumps, leaps and heroic mud-plugging as Defenders churn up the countryside and even whack the odd tree on the way past.

The final act is a deliberate barrell-roll-type flip, rolling the 4x4 all the way over and off a lip so that it crashes back to the wet, muddy floor and continues to roll back onto its wheels. The front corner has extensive damage but the light, pushed way back into the shell, still works and the Defender drives aggressively away. It’ll need a few new panels, mind.

Every crash is so brilliantly carefree, so outrageously cartoonish that we can’t help but love it from start to finish. The only thing we’re a bit confused about is the weird deadpan voiceover. We’re not sure whether it’s a terrible attempt to pull-off a British Secret Service agent voice, or what, but it’s a bit out of step with the rest of the video. Still, we think it’s a great watch all the same.