CarBrandLogos archive · Land Rover · 1983

Land RoverDefender (One Ten)

Coil springs, one name, and thirty-three years of stubbornly refusing to modernise.

Photo: OSX · Public domain

The story

A defining chapter in Land Rover history.

Explore the ideas, engineering and context that shaped the Land Rover Defender (One Ten), then continue into its specifications and place in the marque's lineage.

Origins

The Series III was still selling in 1983, but it was riding on leaf springs that had been specified in the 1940s, and the Range Rover had proved that coils gave better articulation and vastly better ride. The One Ten, launched that year, took the Range Rover's suspension principles and grafted them onto the utility model: coil springs, permanent four-wheel drive, a one-piece windscreen, and wheel arch extensions to cover the wider track. The shorter Ninety followed in 1984, and a One Two Seven, later the 130, covered heavy work.

Defender Stretch · pschleut · Public domain

Design and engineering

The Defender name only appeared in 1990, when Land Rover needed to distinguish the original from the Discovery it had just launched. Underneath, very little changed for the rest of the run. The aluminium panels stayed, the ladder frame stayed, and the model absorbed a succession of engines: the 200Tdi and 300Tdi turbodiesels that transformed its usability, the five-cylinder Td5, and finally a Ford-derived 2.2 four.

Defender90 · Shelka04 (talk) · CC BY-SA 3.0

In production

It was never a comfortable or fast vehicle, and by the 2000s it was noisy, cramped and awkward to get into. It sold anyway, to farmers, armies, aid agencies and, increasingly, to people who simply wanted one. What finally stopped it was regulation rather than demand: pedestrian impact and emissions rules that a body designed in the 1940s could not be made to meet. The last one left Solihull in January 2016, ending a continuous line that had produced more than two million Series and Defender vehicles since 1948. Prices for good used examples rose sharply the moment it stopped.

Motorshow Geneva 4353 · Norbert Aepli, Switzerland (User:Noebu) · CC BY 3.0

At a glance

The facts that define it.

Produced

1983–2016

Technical specification

The Defender (One Ten), in detail.

Production: 1983–2016 ; Over 2 million Series/Defenders built since 1948
Class: Small offroader (90); Medium sized offroader (110 & 130)
Layout: Front engine, four-wheel drive
Assembly: United Kingdom: Solihull (Solihull plant); CKD (Completely Knocked Down) kits:; Australia: Moorebank; Brazil: São Paulo (Karmann); South Africa: Blackheath; Rosslyn; Silverton; Pakistan: Karachi; Turkey: Istanbul; Arifiy
Manufacturer: Land Rover (1983–2012) ; Nowrap; Jaguar Land Rover (2013–2016)

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