New model on four wheels to hit the farm

A new model that complies with all safety standards will be launched soon. However, in the face of Japanese and American competition taking large slices of what once seemed Land Rover’s very own specific territory where does the Defender or its new replacement fit for farmers today?

Joe Hodgson and his partner Steph Lewis started their own servicing and repairs business JAS Land Rovers from his parents’ farm at Everingham, near Shiptonthorpe just over a year ago. Joe had his first Defender at just 17. He has fixed them at a safari lodge in Zambia, has worked in garages in Germany and in Maidenhead, and knows each model inside out.

“I knew nothing about them when I was in my teens other than I wanted one, like every other farmer’s son I guess. I had a 1985 Land Rover 90 that did 0-60 in one minute 32 seconds and was always breaking down, but I soon learned that if you could fix an old Land Rover you could fix any old car. It shaped my career.”

Anyone who had their first experience of a Land Rover Defender a decade or two ago will recall them as boneshakers. It’s a stigma that Joe feels has hopefully finally been shaken off.

“The Defender has been improved so much since 2005. NVH, which is how the manufacturers term noise, vibration and harshness, saw the Defender make an incredible jump forward a decade ago and it has since improved further. When Ford bought Land Rover they brought out a new range of in-house engines in 2007 and also came up with new interiors. The engines are now much smoother running, faster and they have also soundproofed the interior quite substantially.”

But farmers are no longer turning to Defenders in the droves they once were. Instead they are more likely to have a Range Rover or Land Rover Discovery 4 than the archetypal farm vehicle, and more for leisure than as a workhorse. Instead many have turned to the likes of the Hyundai, Nissan, Toyota, Suzuki and others, along with quad bikes.