Off-Road Training Yorkshire - LANTRA and DSA 4×4 training in Yorkshire.

Holmescales Activity Centre - Possibly the best 4×4 driving day in the UK. 300 acres of forest, fellside and farmland to play in. Land Rover 110’s - within easy reach of Yorkshire.

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Off-Road Training Cumbria - LANTRA and DSA training in Cumbria.

Holmescales Activity Centre - Possibly the best 4×4 driving day in the UK. 300 acres of forest, fellside and farmland to play in. Land Rover 110’s.

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4×4 Training - Professional Off Road Training.

Deeside Activity Park - If you ask nicely you might get a Defender, otherwise you could try out a Mitsubishi L200.

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Off Road Training - Professional training courses.

Rothiemurchus - Land Rover Defender Driving Days.

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4×4 Training - Professional off road training courses.

Wigtown Off Road - Land Rover Discovery Driving days.

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4×4 Training - Professional off road training courses.

Ronnie Dale - Corporate events.

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4×4 Training Perthshire - Beyond 4×4 offer professional off-road training.

Perthshire Off Road - Off Road Adventures in Perthshire.

Highland Off Road/Land Rover Experience - The official one.

Creiff Hydro - Very luxurious, lots of other activities to build a day around.

Gleneagles - For when the Golf gets tiresome - enjoy the view driving a Land Rover Defender.

Highland Safaris - Allegedly the highest off road course in the UK.

If you have an off road driving centre or 4×4 site in Perthshire, please let us know - info@offroad4×4driving.co.uk

4×4 Training Fife - Beyond 4×4 offer professional off-road training.

ScotOffRoad - Serious mud fun in their Land Rovers or your own 4×4.

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So what will be the replacement?

At the moment, the defender is still going strong, but with it’s tin can atop a couple of girders construction, it simply won’t be able to keep up with modern safety requirements. If you roll one it simply squishes, crumple zones are designed into the thing you hit and side impact protection is limited to the mobile phone you have in your trouser pocket. The fact is that for all of it’s amazing ability, it really isn’t a 21st century vehicle.

The Discovery 3 is pretty impressive, but the fact is that with all of the technology it is too expensive for real off-road drivers to throw off cliffs on a daily basis. This means that all of the companies who used to use Land Rovers to do their work are now looking at to Toyota or Mitsubishi for their workhorse.

With most of the pick-ups on the market having drum brakes at the back, there’s still nothing like a Landy for driving through a couple of feet of water. Clearances on most of the competition are still not a patch on the Defender and Land Rover themselves have yet to suggest what they are going to do.

Surely it isn’t beyond modern technology to build a simple 4×4 which can be worked hard, be reasonably efficient and not cost the earth?

The classic Defender is still a flagship for Land Rover, so how will they cope when they become just another luxury SUV manufacturer in a world where fuel and insurance prices are increasing by the month?

Any new owner of the Land Rover brand will need to ensure that at the core of their business is the real deal - the off-road vehicle that can cope with every eventuality, or be modified simply to do so.

It needs clearance - the 90 has amazing clearance - still unrivalled by any other vehicle in the world.

It needs to be simple and intuitive - 2 gear boxes and a big lever that locks a centre diff, there’s no reason to change this.

It needs disk brakes all round to cope with dragging wheels through mud, sludge and silt laden water.

It needs to be available in single cab, double cab and station wagon bodies.

For the sake of safety, lets have ABS - and make sure it works down to 1mph.

If you feel you need to - put traction control on it, but let us switch it off when we need to.

Please - build us a 4×4 that we can use.

Once upon a time, many years ago there were twin 4×4s - one lived on her farm in Britain, one in Spain.

They grew apart, they grew up, and they had children.

We know one of those children well - the Land Rover Defender.

Meet the cousin!

Santana used to make Land Rovers under licence, and like the Defender, this is a development of the old Series III.

Unlike the Landy, the Santana has selectable 4×4 and in low range there is no centre diff (I don’t think there’s one at all - a big consideration if you’re looking to buy one for towing). The low 1st gear is very similar to the new low 1st on the 2007 Landy, and is wonderful for crawling down rocky slopes. The 2.8l Iveco engine seems solid enough - another van engine for another van - you can see why Landy looked to the Transit for their engine can’t you.

The other big difference is that the Santana is still on cartsprings. Leaf springs all round do mean that the load capacity is huge - loads more than an unmodified Defender. Unfortunately it does mean that on road it feels like it was designed around the same time as the Morris Minor (……oh yeah, it was!). You can only get a long wheel base (110 equivalent) at the moment, though there is a SWB in Spain.

Off road it’s great to be honest - in cross axle situations the articulation doesn’t seem quite so good as the Defender, but I may have been imagining that - in all other respects, it seems slightly better than the TD5 and pretty much on a par with the 2007.

And considering that it’s about £3 grand cheaper - why wouldn’t you consider it?

Well there’s a couple of reasons - first and foremost of these is that it’s not a Defender. There really is an emotional attatchment for me which would make me feel like I was cheating somehow!

From a logical point of view - spares and repairs are less simple due to parts (though not impossible, everything is pretty simple). Some reports suggest that the transfer box is not the most robust thing in the world, and others suggest that neither is the front axle, but realistically - how many of us have ever bought a brand new Defender and had no problems with it?!

So if you need to lug heavy weights across country - it may be worth looking into. For the price of a soft roader  you can have the real thing.

With a bit of pressure they may even bring in the very good looking short wheel base version this year!

Update - June 2009:

Santana themselves have struggled to break into the UK market - probably due to the emotional attachment we Brits have for the Defender, so despite a few people in the know and some small commercial contracts, they have stopped distributing here.

However, they are due soon to be re-introduced under the Iveco Massive badge, promising a wide range of vehicles, including the much awaited short wheel base!

As soon as Iveco actually bring one out, we will let you know if there’s anything new going on.