Since I wasn't around at the time of the Land Rover's introduction in 1948 I'm not sure what people thought life would be like in the 21st century, but I imagine it involved monorails (there's some kind of law that says you can't predict more than ten years in advance without mentioning monorails), robot butlers, holidays to Mars and, probably, no more Land Rovers - certainly not of the kind that was around in 1948.A decade and a bit into that new century, there are plenty of Land Rovers, and although most would have been unimaginable at the time the brand was created, one - the Defender - has a history which can be traced back directly to the original model.There have been many changes, of course. One of the most recent is the introduction, for 2012, of a 2.2-litre turbo diesel engine to replace the 2.4 which lasted for only four years. Fitted with a particulate filter, the 2.2 complies with Euro 5 emissions regulations, which the 2.4 didn't, but it produces the same maximum power (120bhp) and torque (266lb/ft) at the same revs (3500rpm and 2000rpm respectively).The fuel economy and CO2 emissions, though grim, are no worse than before, and straightline performance is more or less unaffected, though the top speed has been raised from 82mph to 90mph.It's not just about the engine, though. Land Rover isn't making much of this, but the revised car seems much more stable on tarmac than the last Defender I drove back in 2007. It's also a great deal quieter, thanks to the very successful introduction of what the company describes as "a new, full acoustic engine cover".None the less, refinement levels are about as low as you're going to experience in any passenger vehicle currently on sale. One of the windows on the car reviewed here squeaked alarmingly every time it was raised or lowered. (Manually, of course. No electric windows. The very thought.) And the only reason I'm not gingerly rubbing an aching right knee as I write this is that our test car happened to be left-hand drive, so the knee in question wasn't continually being jammed into the window winder.Well, nobody buys a Defender for its refinement. They do, however, and to a much larger extent than is the case with any other Land Rover product, buy it for its off-road capability. It does have rather a lot of this, as Land Rover was keen to demonstrate by sending an international gathering of journalists over a bobby dazzler of a course on the Duke of Roxburghe's estate in southern Scotland.I should say at this point that I've done quite a lot of off-roading, but nearly all of it has been on media events like this one, and always under expert supervision. I always listen to the advice of people who know more about it than I do, and try my best to follow it. I suppose I could therefore be described as an experienced beginner, and what I'm about to say about the Defender's prowess in hostile territory should be read with that in mind.Okay. Deeply impressive as the Defender undoubtedly was during this adventure, there were two things that gave me pause for thought. One was that it doesn't go downhill as slowly as many other SUVs, or even some pickups - and believe me, there are times in off-roading when you want to go downhill very slowly indeed.The vehicles which do this better all (as far as I can remember) rely on Hill Descent Control, which the Defender doesn't have, to do it, and I would rather be trusting my safety to lots of sturdy pieces of metal than to a surely more vulnerable electronic system. But that's not what comes to mind when you're teetering down a muddy bank and staring at the rocks below.The other matter of concern is that there's a fair bit of turbo lag, and I blame this for the second time I got stuck and had to be rescued (the first being unquestionably my own fault). Exiting a river, I had to make a sharp right turn very slowly - I'd have clattered into the scenery otherwise - and then boot the Defender up a steep hill.I booted, as required, but nothing happened for a few tenths of a second, and by the time the power came in it was too late for the Defender to be able to cope with the rapidly increasing gradient, and that was that. Apologies were blushingly given, winches were employed. One of the numerous (and superb) off-road advisers in the vicinity assured me that hardly anyone had completed that part of the course successfully, and blamed this on the fact that the early runners had brought water from the river on to the slope, which became more or less unclimbable as a result.Maybe that's true. I certainly don't have the expertise to argue against it. But I still think, as I did at the time, that I'd have been in with a better chance of getting to the top of the hill if the engine had reacted more quickly to a request for power at the bottom of it. Engine 2198cc, 4 cylinders Power 120bhp Transmission 6-speed manual Fuel/CO2 25.5mpg / 295g/km Acceleration 0-62mph: 15.8 seconds Top speed 90mph Price £28,195 Details correct at publication date
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