A BMW-powered Land Rover Defender SVR could be coming, report says
The SVR Defender would be JLR's attempt at sticking it to the AMG-ified G-Wagen.
The new Land Rover Defender only just made its debut in Frankfurt, but already, the word 'round the schoolyard is that Jaguar Land Rover is planning on releasing an SVR version to stick it to Mercedes-AMG and its hotted-up G-Wagens, according to a report Thursday by AutoExpress.
This new Defender SVR wouldn't feature the traditional supercharged 5.0-liter V8 that we've seen in basically every SVR product for the last geological age, but instead would be #blessed with a 4.4-liter twin-turbo unit from JLR's technical partner, BMW.
We're big fans of the old supercharged V8. Still, that engine is, A, probably getting toward the end of when it can be justified from a fuel economy and emissions standpoint and, B, made in a factory by Ford that's supposed to be shut down in the next year anyway. The switch to BMW is no bad thing.
It seems likely that the new Defender SVR would be based on the longer-wheelbase 110 model Defender, which we've seen and loved both the look and spec of, but not driven. We have driven the newly reengineered G63 though, and while the old one would have been an easy target, the new one is a much more competent vehicle on the road while giving up very little in the way of off-road prowess.
We'd expect an SVR Defender model to cost in excess of $100,000 but probably well short of the G63's $147,500 starting price.
When we asked Land Rover for confirmation of the model's existence, its representatives, for their part, responded rather succinctly with, "It was total speculation." We're not so sure that's true.
Based on the brand's previous model range, we'd expect to, at the very least, see a concept version of a Defender SVR sometime in the 12 to 18 months.
