A fresh report out of Australia claims Land Rover intends to take on the Mercedes-AMG G63 with “a faster, more extreme” version of the recently revealed Defender V8.
According to motoring.com.au, the rumoured high-performance version will gain “motorsport-inspired” high-lift suspension, model-specific body changes and fresh off-road technology.
In addition, the supercharged 5,0-litre V8 engine’s peak outputs are expected to rise from the standard figures of 386 kW and 625 N.m.
Jaguar Land Rover Special Vehicle Operations (SVO) boss Michael van der Sande stopped short of confirming the model but did tell the publication the recently revealed Defender V8 was not handed an “SV” badge simply because it didn’t have the requisite “amount of technical changes you would expect on an SV product”. That, of course, leaves space for a full-fat SVR model to take on the G63.
Interestingly, Van der Sande said the company’s “purchase of Bowler last year was very intentional”, adding “we felt we were slightly underrepresented in performance off-roading”. For the record, Bowler has been manufacturing racing vehicles based on Land Rover chassis since 1985.
As a reminder, the G63 offers 430 kW and 850 N.m from its twin-turbo 4,0-litre V8 petrol heart, delivered to all four wheels via a nine-speed automatic transmission. The Affalterbach-based performance division claims a 0-100 km/h time of 4,5 seconds.
