Off-road Gangsta Vibes

Meet the Land Rover Defender OCTA – easily the most extreme production Defender ever made. It’s a vehicle that occupies that little-explored nexus between English gangsta and outdoor adventurer … kind of Guy Ritchie-meets-Kinglsey Holgate.

WORDS VISI PHOTOS Supplied

It’s all bulging muscles testing the seams of a waxed Barbour jacket, wearing handmade leather Wellington boots and squinting at you from under a Harris tweed flat cap. It’s King Charles’ ex SAS bodyguard walking the Scottish heath, with a vintage Purdey shotgun in hand and an SA80 assault rifle slung beneath the Barbour.

The fire power is a BMW-derived 4.4‑litre Twin Turbo mild‑hybrid V8 engine with 467 kW and up to 750Nm, allowing it to hoof from 0-100km/h in 4.0 seconds. So yes, it’s very, very quick. But very quick is never our focus at VISI… our design lens means we’re much more interested in why it looks the way it does.

Exterior

Both taller and wider than the standard Defender, The OCTA features bulging wheel arches that house chunky Goodyear Duratrac tyres fitted to its off-road racer-like 20-inch wheels. All of that, along with its deeper, more menacing grille flecked carbon fibre trim accents on the bonnet vents, side fender surrounds, and bumper inserts will likely see you doff your cap and quietly make way off the hiking path.

Our test vehicle was painted in Charente Grey, but other options include Petra Copper, Carpathian Grey, Patagonia White Matte and the next-level menacing Octa Black you see in these images. With a deep, black as the base colour, over 30 external elements – from scuff plates and tow hooks to badges, exhaust tips, and even the grille’s oval – are finished either gloss or satin black. This one’s more brooding gangsta than Kinglsey Holgate … like a menacing Heathcliff if Guy Ritchie did Wuthering Heights.

And just in case you’re not entirely sure who you’re dealing with, every Defender OCTA bears the badge of an encircled diamond graphic. It’s a gloss black diamond within a machined and sandblasted titanium disc and serves as confirmation of provenance – an octahedral shape derived from a cut diamond, the toughest and most desirable mineral.

Interior

Inside the OCTA, the design philosophy shifts from brute spectacle to refined utility and sensory comfort. It’s part command centre, part luxe Highlands retreat where our hero can both direct operations and enjoy  the deeply bolstered “Body and Soul Seat” (BASS). This techno wonder allows the driver and passenger not just to hear, but to feel the music through vibro-acoustic feedback via the 700-W Meridian sound system. It’s a “tough luxury” ethos where you can choose the cut of your cloth. There’s semi-aniline leather with Kvadrat textile trim, or lighter Ultrafabrics™ PU options that claim to be about 30% lighter, but as durable, as traditional leather.

The Defenders interior has always been one of the model’s greatest strength, so changing it too much is a smart move. There is a new 13.1-inch touchscreen that take centre stage, anchoring a modern infotainment interface, while the centre console is redesigned for storage efficiency, with some stealth hiding places for your mobile phone. Or Glock.

Controls remain tactile where needed, minimalist elsewhere. Though one button does demands your attention … an OCTA-badged button on the steering wheel. While pressing this doesn’t quite launch a spray of surface-to-surface missiles, it does provide quick access to all the vehicle’s performance settings. The effect is not dissimilar. Basically everything is then dialled up to 11. A single press the engages Dynamic Mode, making steering, throttle, suspension, and exhaust more responsive. A long press engages the dedicated, off road-performance-focused Octa Mode, engaging a clinching of the buttocks.

What may also cause that involuntary muscle contraction is the price. The base price is R3,66m and our test car had a further R183k worth of extras. Just before you Google price comparisons with other off-road nutters – likes of the Mercedes-AMG G63, Lamborghini Urus and Porsche 911 Dakar that can also boast big power numbers – bear in mind that crew doesn’t quite have the offroad chops of this Defender. With new hydraulically‑interlinked 6D Dynamics suspension technology alongside extensive hardware and geometry changes, the OCTA’s dynamic capabilities go beyond what any Defender has achieved before. And the Defender has achieved a lot before.

For the record those competitors mentioned earlier are well into the R4m and even R5m bracket. You can unclench now. | landrover.co.za

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