Back After 20 Years, The Land Rover Defender Is Named MotorTrend SUV Of The Year
New York (CNN Business)MotorTrend named the new Land Rover Defender as its 2021 SUV of the Year. The newly designed Defender recently returned to the US market after the model had not been sold here for more than 20 years.
Like the Jeep Wrangler or Ford's Bronco, the Defender is built to withstand serious off-road use -- even though many buyers will rarely take it beyond the suburbs. When it was first unveiled at the Frankfurt Motor Show in Germany in 2019, Land Rover boasted it had been subjected to "Extreme Event Test" procedures that were far more rigorous than those ordinarily used in the auto industry.
MotorTrend editors were impressed by the Defender's performance on the road -- as well as off -- and by its design, which gave a sense of adventure.
"You can tell that Land Rover spent the extra money to make the interior look rugged, but also be rugged," said editor-in-chief Mark Rechtin.
Tracing its roots back to the original Land Rover models that went into production shortly after World War II, the Defender name wasn't used until 1990. The Defender went out of production altogether in 2016 and was last sold in the US in 1997.
The new Defender has a modern design that carries styling cues from classic boxy Land Rovers. It's currently available in the four-door Defender 110 version, with a starting price of about $50,000. The two-door Defender 90 will be available early next year with prices starting at about $46,000.
- Oct 21, 2020-