Development and testing of the new 2020 Land Rover Defender are almost complete with the car clocking up 1.2 million kilometres in testing.
Land Rover has also announced the final phase of field testing for the new Defender will take place in Kenya with the Tusk Trust.
A camouflage-wrapped Defender prototype will be put through its paces at the Borana Conservancy as part of a 15-year partnership between Land Rover and the Tusk Trust. The vehicles will be used to reach some of the world’s most remote locations.
Nick Rogers, Executive Director, Product Engineering, Jaguar Land Rover, said: “In addition to the extensive simulation and rig testing, we’ve driven new Defender 1.2 million kilometres across all terrains and in extreme climates to ensure that it is the toughest and most capable Land Rover ever made.”
“The incredible opportunity to put it to the test in the field, supporting operations at the Borana Conservancy in Kenya, with Tusk, will allow our engineers to verify that we are meeting this target as we enter the final phase of our development programme.”
In total, the Defender will have passed more than 45,000 individual tests by the time it is revealed in full later this year, most likely at the Frankfurt motor show.
These tests include exposing the vehicle to the 50-degree heat of the desert, the sub 40-degree cold of the Arctic, as well as up to 10,000ft altitude in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado.
Testing also took place at the Nürburgring facility in Germany where the on-road dynamics were honed. The muddy roads of Eastnor, UK, the rocky trails of Moab in Utah, and the sand dunes of Dubai also gave engineers insight into the all-terrain capabilities of the Defender.
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