The 2020 Land Rover Defender Is the Hottest SUV of the Year

This is the new 2020 Land Rover Defender and it's a huge deal. The Defender is one of the longest lasting most recognizable SUV nameplates on the planet. It has a huge following and this is the all-new model, totally redesigned, a full reimagination of the Defender compared to everything that it was before. And today I'm going to review it. Before I talk new Defender, be sure to check out Cars and Bids, which is a new online car auction website I've created to be the ultimate marketplace for modern enthusiast cars with daily auctions of cool cars like this one, my E63 AMG wagon, which is live for sale right now on Cars and Bids. Right now we're offering $1,000 each to the first 50 sellers on Cars and Bids and $500 each to the next 50 sellers and we have low buyer's fees too. So if you're looking to buy or sell a modern enthusiast car from the 1980s to the 2020s, check out Cars and Bids. Carsandbids.com by clicking the link in the description below. I've borrowed this new Defender from Hohen Motors Jaguar Land Rover Carlsbad, which is my local Land Rover dealership here in the San Diego area. Hohen Land Rover has just started to officially get the new Defender. It is arriving. They currently have two and more new Defenders are on their way at Hohen Jaguar Land Rover. So let's talk Defender. The original Defender traces its lineage back to the original Land Rover, which came out in the 1940s. Of course it was updated and refined over the years, but the same basic principle always held true. It was a simple off-road four-wheel drive vehicle that could handle tough conditions from farm use to off-roading to rough roads in Africa or traversing the Australian outback. But with changing safety and emissions regulations, the old Defender no longer made sense in the modern world. So Land Rover went back to the drawing board to create this, the new Defender, completely reimagined from the ground up. It's offered in two versions. There's a four-door model, this one called the 110, and there's a two-door version called the 90. Here in North America, you have a choice between two engines. The base engine is a turbo four-cylinder with about 300 horsepower, or you can upgrade to this one, the turbo six-cylinder, which has about 400 horsepower. Now, despite its off-road heritage and its premium Land Rover brand name, pricing for the new Defender isn't out of control. A base model starts around $50,000, although this one is equipped to around $75,000 with options. And today, I'm going to review it. First, I'm going to take you on a tour of it and show you all of the interesting quirks and features of the long-awaited new Defender. Then I'm going to get it out on the road and drive it, and then I will give it a Doug's score. All right, I'm going to start the quirks and features of the new Defender on the outside, and I want to talk about some design and style elements, starting with this box. A lot has been made about the fact that there is a body-colored square on the side of the car. Two reasons it's there. One is to cover up the pillar that would be here, but of course, it's larger than that pillar, so there's also a style aspect to it. Land Rover thinks a floating square on the side of the As you can see, on the inside of the square, there's actually a little storage compartment with a little strap, so you can put a water bottle on the inside of your body-colored exterior square. And next up, another notable item, also in this vicinity, is up here. Hard to tell with the black-painted roof, but this is a window looking up. Land Rover calls it the Safari window, and you can see on the inside, it is kind of a cool look. It brings new light into the cabin, and the theory is when you're on Safari, you can use the window to look out and see interesting animals in the treetops. Not sure anyone will use it that way, but the window is there nonetheless. And next up, we've got to talk about the front-end styling, and specifically, the headlights. You can see when the running lights are on, you have circles up here, which mimics the look of the old Defender, which always had big circular headlights, but you also have two little square running light boxes to the side of the main circle, and you can see when the turn signal goes on, they fit neatly within those boxes. So, you have the big circle in the middle and the little boxes on the side, and it all contributes to a cool and distinctive look compared to other Land Rover models. But the rear lighting in the new Defender is far more unusual than the front lighting. You can see on both sides in the rear, you have two sets of rear light squares. There's a larger set of squares with the squares on top of each other, and a smaller set over to the side, which just looks like a little baby taillight. Now, basically, since I first saw this, I've been wondering how exactly does that work with the brake lights and the turn signals, and I always assumed the larger one was the brake light and the smaller one was the turn signals, but not so. You can see when the brake lights go on, all of it lights up. All four, big and small, on either side as the brake light. And when you put on the turn signal, guess what? All four of them blink as a turn signal. So, it's both the brake light and the turn signal, and they all light up as both, depending on which one you have on. A very unusual way to do this. Now, as for why they have the big lights and the small lights, I was told that the small lights are supposed to pay tribute to the old Land Rovers that had sort of small circular lights in the corner. This one instead has squares, but that's the theory about why they're there, and now you know the strange way that they operate. And since we're talking about the exterior of the new Defender, let's talk styling. I'm going to give you my opinion. I love it. Land Rover has made some very beautiful cars lately, but that seemed to me to be a bit of a problem. The Defender is not supposed to be beautiful. It's supposed to be boxy and brawny and muscular, and I thought they would screw it up by adapting other Land Rover design language into the Defender, but they didn't. This is boxy. It has the flared fenders. It has the look of a Defender just brought into the modern era. No, it doesn't quite have the boxy charm of the old one, but it never was going to with emission regulations and pedestrian safety regulations and crash regulations, but they got as close as they could for a modern vehicle, and I think they nailed it, and I'm really impressed with the styling and the look of new Defender. And since I'm on the outside, another unusual item with the new Defender is on the roof. You can see this weird shark fin thing. Now, some modern cars have this usually for like satellite radio reception, but this one has a camera on it. You might be thinking, what is that? Is that where the backup camera is? The answer is no. You can see above the license plate, there's another camera. That is the backup camera. So what exactly is this camera on this roof-mounted shark fin? Ah, you see, that camera is one of the tricks of the new Defender because it's for the rear-view mirror. Okay, check this out. In the rear-view mirror, you look back there, and you can see a lot of stuff. Headrest, there's a spare tire mounted on the back, and so visibility isn't great, but flip this little switch, and it's all gone. That's because now you're looking at the view from that camera mounted on that shark fin, and the advantage here is when you look in your rear-view mirror, you just have a clear vision behind you. Instead of seeing seats and headrests and spare tire and vehicle interior, now you just see what's behind you. It's a brilliant safety feature. Land Rover is adding it to more cars, and other automakers are too, and I think all new cars will have it before long. But there's way more to discuss in this interior than that mirror, and I want to start with the obvious thing you notice the moment you climb in, and that would be the durability of this interior. Everything is durable. It's not luxurious like other Land Rover models. I'll give you some examples. This is the first edition Defender with all the features. The thinking is you'll pay more for it to have the first one. So it has leather seats, but you can see the leather seats are trimmed with this kind of fabric surrounding them, a very durable material, not some beautiful leather like you might expect on a luxury SUV. And it goes way further than that. On the door panels, no leather. Instead, you have this very durable, almost rubber-feeling material that seems like it will never break down or disintegrate. Same deal on the dashboard. You have that same durable material on the top going across the entire dashboard, and below the center screen, the same material appears again. Again, not some beautiful, fine leather with stitching, but a durable, off-road-friendly material. And check this out. The material around the center controls looks like plastic, but actually, it's rubber. You can touch it. Clearly, it feels like rubber. That's what it is, another more durable material. This is also true of the top of the dashboard. Kind of looks like plastic, but when you touch it, you can tell clearly rubber. Again, a more durable material. And rubber is used on basically every flat surface in this vehicle. You can see this storage compartment at the bottom of it, not plastic, but rubber. And same thing over in this storage compartment on the passenger side. It's all rubber in here. That's in part because rubber's more durable. It'll last longer, but it's also because you can stick stuff there, pens or whatever. And then when you're driving around, it won't roll all over the place as you're off-roading or rock crawling, so stuff will stay where you put it with rubber surfaces. So that's what it has. Another good example of the differences in interior materials between the new Defender and other luxury Land Rovers, the lid of the cupholders is this rubber piece that just comes right off. Normally, it's some luxury cover that you roll back ever so gently, but not in this thing. It's rubber, and you can just pull it off and throw it somewhere if you want. And you might be wondering about the area behind the center screen. Yes, it is empty back there for storage. The screen doesn't go all the way through into the dashboard, so you can put stuff back there if you want to hide it or get it out of the way. And of course, the bottom of that storage area is, again, rubber to make sure stuff doesn't roll around. But it isn't just the materials in here that make everything seem different from a normal luxurious Land Rover. There are also style and design choices, like, for instance, the exposed screws on the door panel. They would never do this in a Range Rover, but it makes more sense in the utilitarian, rugged Defender. Same deal with just the general look in here. Everything is boxy and rugged looking. There's no attempt at curves or flowing lines like you might get on a more traditional luxury vehicle. And over on the passenger side, they emphasize its off-roadiness further. For one thing, you have a grab handle. You can stick your hands in here when you're in tough off-roading situations so you don't fly around. And of course, it says Defender in the dashboard area, which just makes it look cool and reminds you of the special vehicle that you're in. And next up, moving on to some of the controls in here, I want to start with the center console, which is rather unusual compared to other Land Rover models because the new Defender offers a three-person front bench seat, meaning that they had to get all of the controls kind of pushed up into the dashboard area so there could be leg room for the center passenger if you order that three-person bench. So that leads to some interesting stuff in here, like this weird gear lever, which looks like an elbow. Small, but operates like a traditional gear lever in most other modern vehicles. Of course, you also have your center controls in here and these two dials in the center, which operate like they do in other Land Rover models. In their natural state, just twist them and you can change the temperature of the climate control, no surprise. Or if you push the dial, you can turn on the heated seat. You can see, turning it to the right, there's a red arrow and that turns on the heated seat. Interestingly, there's also a blue arrow if you turn it to the left, but this car doesn't have cooled seats. It just has that blue arrow to let you know that you could have had cooled seats, I guess. But those dials in the center have more functions than just that. There's a button in the center, and if you push the bottom part, the dial on the right suddenly becomes the fan speed dial, and you can twist it to adjust your fan speed. Push it again and it goes back to being the temperature dial, so it has multiple functions. If you push that center button on top, then the dial on the left now controls your drive mode, or your drive program, as Land Rover calls it. And you can switch between all of the different off-road programs by using this dial, which just moments ago was your climate control dial. So it's a neat way to integrate various functions into just two dials, which allows you to clean up the center control area because you don't need individual controls for all of those things. Now, as for the buttons in this area, over on the left, most of the buttons control various drive functions and primarily off-road functions. The two biggest buttons will raise or lower the new Defender because all of these come with air suspension, and it raises really fast. Take a look at this. This isn't sped up, and you can see it's going up very quickly, so if you encounter something that you need to clear, you don't have to sit there and wait for the suspension to go up. It does it instantly. And there are various different heights, so you can add more ground clearance if you're off-roading. As for the rest of the buttons in this area, over on the right, these are pretty much just your climate controls, all of the usual stuff, nothing unusual or unexpected in here. Now, to the right of all of these buttons, you have the stereo volume dial and the button that turns on and off the radio. That's over on the passenger side because the driver has their own controls on the steering wheel. And next up, speaking of steering wheel controls, the new Defender has electronic buttons on the steering wheel like other Land Rover models have. Now, I've shown you how these buttons work in various different Land Rovers, the Velar, I recently reviewed the Evoque, but the gist of it is the buttons can adapt to whatever menu you're on in the gauge cluster screen. So you can see the buttons display is actually changing depending on what menu you're seeing currently, which is a pretty cool trick. Now, other Land Rover models have these steering wheel buttons in sort of a black piano finish, but in the new Defender, they're plastic. So they don't quite look as nice, but they're going to be more durable and they look a little bit less fingerprinty when you actually use them. And next up, another interesting item up here. As you can see, this Defender has a massive sunroof, a giant panoramic roof, like so many modern SUVs have. One unusual item though, it doesn't open very far. You can only open it about as far as a normal sunroof. As you can see, this is the maximum opening, so you can't get that huge, almost convertible style feel in here. And next up, here's an interesting touch. On the interior door panel on the driver's side, you look at the bottom and there's this like plastic thing that's sticking out. You might be wondering what that does. Well, if you close the door, that plastic thing is pushed up against the hood release, and then you can't pull the hood release and open it. I guess the thinking here is by sticking that on there, it makes absolutely certain that you don't accidentally open the hood while you're driving along. So that's why that little wart is in the door. And finally, another thing I noticed up here, something I love is the sheer number of chargers. Okay, check this out. In the center, you have USB-C, then you have USB, then you have a standard card charger outlet. In the dashboard itself, you have another USB outlet. And in the center console, you have a wireless charging system where you can stick your phone and it starts to charge. So there's a lot of different charging options in the front of the new Defender, which is nice if you're off-roading far from civilization and you want to make sure your devices are operating. And next up, we move on to the tech, the center screen, where there is a lot to talk about, including some really cool off-roading features. One of my very favorites I have ever seen, a feature called Wade Sensing. Check this out. In the Wade Sensing mode, the car will actually measure the depth of the water that you have forded. There are sensors that can do this, and it will let you know if the water is getting too deep for you to continue. No more off-roading with a tape measure and getting out when you see a giant water hole and sticking it in to see how deep it is. The car will measure for you. And check this out. When you raise the suspension, it actually raises the depth of water that you can ford. You can see the amount is increasing because the car is now higher, and so it can go through more water. That is a pretty cool feature, you have to admit. And next up, another cool feature in here is something called low traction launch. If you're in a very low traction mud situation, you just can't get going, you turn this on, and the car will launch itself or start off by going very slowly in a way that would be hard for you to do. It will do it automatically to make sure it doesn't get stuck and it keeps going. And next up, another cool tech feature in the screen is the camera system. Shift into reverse, and of course, you get a backup camera and a top-down 360 camera. Those are pretty common these days. But you also have this cool around-the-car monitoring system that will show you an image from outside the car with the car in it. I love these cameras. More automakers are starting to get them, and it's nice to see it in the new Defender. It makes parking really, really helpful, especially in a stressful situation. And next up, another interesting item in the infotainment system, there's an item marked vehicle dimensions. And you can click on it and it will give you the dimensions of your vehicle. I mentioned this in my review of the Range Rover Velar. Still find it to be very odd. It shows exactly how long you are, tall, all that stuff. Interestingly, when you raise the suspension, you can see it actually changes the dimensions to let you know, okay, here's how tall you are now. So if you're worried about clearing a low parking garage ceiling, you can go in there and see just how tall your vehicle is in its current state. Mostly, though, what I want to say about this center screen is that it's really, really impressive. It's not the largest screen in the industry, not even close, but it is very intuitive to use, very easy with good displays, and tremendously responsive to your touch, just like a smartphone. And a big departure from other Land Rover models where you have to press the screen pretty hard to make it absolutely certain that's what you want to do. Instead, this operates like the smartphones we're all used to, and it works really well. And I'm very impressed with this infotainment system. And next up, we move on to the backseat in the new Defender, and there's a lot to discuss back here. For one thing, once again, it is very utilitarian back here. Just look at the floor. Now, obviously, you can get carpet floor mats to put on here if you want, but a lot of cars have a built-in carpeting, and then you put the carpet floor mats on top of that. Not the new Defender. This is plastic and rubber. This is stuff that is designed to get dirty and wet when you're off-roading. You can tell this is no G-Wagon, no ultra luxury off-roader. This car is built for more utilitarian off-road purposes. Now, one thing I'm really impressed with back here is just how good the interior room is in the rear seats. There's a lot of space back here. Of course, I was expecting there to be a lot of headroom because this is a boxy car, and that's one of the benefits. And indeed, there is. There's inches between my head and the ceiling, but it's not just that. I also have a lot of leg room. The passenger seat is where a normal adult would sit, and I have several inches for my knees. This is a roomy backseat in this car, more than I was expecting given that it's not that big of an SUV. Also, back here, mimicking the front, there is an insane amount of places where you can charge stuff. In the middle, you have, on the outsides, two regular car chargers, and then on the inside, you have two USB ports. So that's four charger outlets just there. But on the backs of the front seats slide this little door, and you have another USB charger there on both sides. This is, of course, for an iPad or a tablet. You also have a little area where you can stick a mount, and then you plug it into that charger, and your kids can watch it on a mount instead of in their lap. But either way, a huge number of charging possibilities in the second row. And next up, another feature I really like in the new Defender, and a lot of new Land Rovers, is the door-mounted blind spot monitor. This little pad here is a blind spot monitor, and when you start opening your door, it lets you know if something is coming up behind you like a cyclist, and it will warn you, and that way you won't accidentally open up your door into a cyclist or traffic and hurt them or damage your car. It's a really good idea integrated into the front and rear doors in the new Defender, and more cars should have it. And next up, here's another interesting feature back here, the rear seat climate controls. You can see you turn the dial to change the temperature, and the center dial you can change the fan speed. The odd thing is there's only one rear climate zone back here, even though there are two rear climate temperature dials. So when you twist them, they're always on the same temperature, and you can't make them different temperatures. In fact, the sync button is grayed out back here. This is the button you would press to unsync the dials, allow you to change to different temperatures. You don't have that option. Instead, you have two separate dials that will always have the exact same function. But I guess one is a little closer to the seat on the right, and the other is a little closer to the seat on the left, so at least there's that. By the way, one other cool thing in the back seat, if you look up, you can see out the Safari window, it's broken into two bits, and the front part is supposed to be for second row rear seat passengers, and you can look out there and again see all of the special animals in the trees while you're on Safari. And next up, another interesting thing about the back seat is there's a third row. Yes, that's right, this is not a huge SUV, but big enough that Land Rover decided to give it third row seating. And access to the third row is surprisingly easy thanks to a very conveniently designed second row. All right, check this out. You want to move the second row forward, there's a little lever under it. Just pull the lever, slide the seat forward, very simple. You want to put the second row seat down, there's a little lever on the side. Just pull the lever, the seat folds flat. Again, very easy. And if you want to fold the seat back forward and slide the forward at once to get access to the third row, just pull this little latch on the side of the seat, and it does it all in one motion. One latch, very easy, and then you have a path to get in to the third row. Not that that makes it easy, because like I said, this isn't a very big vehicle to have three row seating, but it's back there, and so now I'm going to do my best to climb inside. Here goes. Okay. Well, I got in basically by throwing myself back here, but I'm in, and I got to tell you, this is about the tightest third row seat I have ever been in in any vehicle. I can only remember the Mercedes GLB having a tighter third row, but it's back here for very small children, never adults under any circumstances. And the third row isn't just tight, because there's nowhere to put your legs. It's also kind of claustrophobic, because of that body colored box I showed you on the outside. On the inside, it takes away a lot of your window back here, and it makes it feel even smaller than it is. But at least you get that little storage area with the strap. Not really a great trade-off. With that said, it's worth pointing out that the safari windows do help back here. You get more safari window in the third row than you do in the second row. It's a little bit larger, and it makes it feel a little bit lighter and airier, which helps combat the claustrophobic feeling. Also, I'm surprised to report that for such a tiny afterthought, rarely going to be used third row, you have some pretty good amenities back here. For one thing, you have climate control. Although you can't change the temperature, that's done up front, but you can adjust the fan speed, and it comes out the vents and keeps you cool or warm. You also have cup holders back here. There's a cup holder on each side, which will be nice for rear seat passengers, for kids riding in the back. And you have charge points back here. You can see on the side, you lift this up, you can plug something in. Same deal on the other side. So you have two separate chargers and two cup holders, which is nice and practical considering how small this third row is. And next up, we move on to the cargo area, where there's more interesting stuff to report. For one thing, the cargo area door opens to the side like this, not up, because the spare tire is on it, and it would be way too heavy to lift up a tailgate, so it opens to the side. Now, unfortunately, it opens to the wrong side for here in North America. It opens up to what's typically the curb side. So if you're loading stuff in from the curb, it makes it more difficult to do that. But this is a British car, and this is the right way for the door to open in the British market. Some automakers will actually create two separate rear ends, depending on whether it's a left-hand drive or a right-hand drive country, but that isn't the case here. But anyway, back to the cargo area. You fold down the seats back here, and you can see that once again, Land Rover has used a tremendously durable material. You don't have carpet lining this thing or any sort of leather. Instead, you have this plastic thing with this pattern on it intended for throwing muddy boots or a wet wetsuit or whatever you might want to do when you're going off-roading or living your active Land Rover lifestyle. Now, one thing I find especially cool back here is that when you have the third-row seats folded down, you still have access to all of the third-row stuff. For instance, those cupholders were not part of the seats. Instead, they're anchored to the side of the cargo area. So when you have the seats folded down, you can still use them if you're tailgating, which could be useful. Same deal with the climate controls. You still have easy access to the fan dial back here. So if, for instance, you put a dog in the back, you can just turn up the fan, the climate controls, and your dog will stay cool or warm. And there's tons of charging back here, even beyond those little charging ports I showed you on the sides of the seats. You also have another charge port on the bottom on the side of the cargo area. And on the other side, you have a household-style electrical outlet back here. So you're tailgating with your Defender, you can plug in your toaster. Next up, a couple of other noteworthy items back here. One, you can raise or lower the suspension from back here. These little buttons on the side of the cargo area, you can push it and then lower the vehicle. If, for instance, you're loading in something very heavy to the cargo area and you just can't lift it up high enough, push that button. The car goes lower to make it easier to load in. Also, on the inside of the giant tailgate door, you have the word Defender written out, which is kind of cool. And you have a little small storage pocket in here for tiny stuff. You don't want to roll around in the cargo area. One other interesting item back here is the cargo cover. Unfortunately, you don't have a traditional rolling cover like you do in every other car. Instead, there are six separate hooks that you have to use to hook it in place, which is just tiresome. I think Land Rover's thought is that those roll-top cargo covers are really cumbersome and difficult to get out. But the problem is, this way, it's more difficult to get it back in, and I would rather have that roll cover than this weird hook thing that you'll be fumbling with for a while. And finally, we move under the hood. And like I mentioned, this one has a turbocharged six-cylinder with about 400 horsepower. That's the optional engine. The standard base engine is a turbo four-cylinder with about 300 horsepower. Now, that seems like it would be adequate, and maybe this one is muscular, but I guess we'll find out when I drive it. Other markets also have a diesel option, but not North America. Here in the States, our only options right now are the turbo four or the turbo six. And so, those are the quirks and features of the new 2020 Land Rover Defender. Now it's time to get it out on the road and see how it drives. All right, driving the new Defender. I've been so excited to do this ever since the old one went away, and they said there'd be a new one, and I've been waiting and waiting. It's been years. First thing you notice when you get behind the wheel is undoubtedly great driving position. You sit up high. You're tall. It does not feel like a low crossover. This isn't a Mazda CX-5. This isn't a Honda CR-V. People always used to say the old Range Rover Classics had a king of the road driving position. That's kind of what this feels like. I also personally really do like the interior. You don't have those really high-end luxury materials like you do in a Range Rover or in a G-Wagon, but you also get the price break. And frankly, Land Rover's argument would be that's not the purpose of the Defender. The Defender is not a G-Wagon. It's not a luxury suburb car. It's intended for actual use, and they've clearly built it with that thought in mind. Now this is the six-cylinder. Don't have access to a four-cylinder yet. 300 horsepower to me seems like it ought to be enough, but this one has 400. All right, I'm going to floor it here. Yeah, pretty good. Very smooth. It's not exceptionally fast, but it feels very smooth, and it's very... I mean, zero to 60 is five-something with the 400-horsepower engine. Obviously, that's a very reasonable time. Having just floored it, I will say maybe the four-cylinder will be a little bit underpowered, maybe a little slow, but I suspect that it will be adequate, whereas this is just a little bit more than adequate. Neither one probably very fast. Really, I do love the driving position. I love sitting up here, and I really like the substantial feel of this car. That was the thing that I was most nervous about, was whether it would feel substantial. You get in a G-Wagon, and you really feel like you're planted on the ground, like you can roll over anything, like you're tough, and that's what people want from an off-roader SUV, and I was really nervous if Land Rover... You know, the Evoque doesn't have that feel to it, intentionally. It's not supposed to, but I was really nervous that Land Rover would screw up that part, and it doesn't feel like that. This does have sort of that substantial, planted, like I could roll over that curb type of feel to it, and I like that. One other thing I am surprised about and impressed with with this car, it's smooth. It feels very smooth. I'm not exactly sure the wheel size on this particular one, 20, 21, something like that, but it feels... It's night and day compared to my old Defender. I've been disappointed with the four-cylinder in some of Land Rover's models because it doesn't feel very smooth. The acceleration, you tip in, and it's a little hesitant, and then you get a lot more power. This doesn't have that problem. It really does feel like a good, smooth engine with solid, sort of reliable power, no matter where your foot is on the accelerator. One interesting thing I will say, the car feels bigger than I expected it to. If you look at the dimensions on paper, it's not that big of a vehicle. It's really a midsize. It feels larger than it is, whereas some crossovers feel smaller. As far as visibility, it is a complete disaster to the back, and I have to tell you, if you're getting one of these, you should get the clear sight mirror thing, because you look back there, and you have the three headrests, and then the spare tire, and you really can't see a thing. And the clear sight mirror, I think, is available as a standalone option, so whatever else you get, you can get it. And it's worth it, because you flip a switch, and suddenly, the world is clear again back there. Overall, though, visibility is really strong. One of the great benefits of a boxy vehicle, in addition to headroom, you can see everywhere. That's one of the things I like the most about it. The velar is great, but it's kind of tapered in the back, and you don't quite have that full-range visibility. Not so in this thing. You got huge mirrors that look like the mirrors in the old Defender, and you can see all around you. Overall, I gotta say, this is better than I expected. I liked how it looked. I liked the interior. I liked the options, but I was worried that it was going to feel kind of small and wimpy. I was really, really nervous about that. I've been scared about that for two years, and as I'm driving it today, right now, I can tell you, it does not have a wimpy feel to it. It feels substantial. It feels like an off-roader should, but this is a good car, and a good motor, and, in my opinion, I really mean this, a good Defender. And so, that's the new 2020 Land Rover Defender. I love my old Defender, but it's loud, and it's rough, and it's crashy, and it's a disaster to drive, and frankly, it's not a realistic option for like 99.9% of people. The new Defender keeps some of the charm from the old model with the boxy styling, and the off-road capability, and the durable interior, but it refines it for the modern era. Purists were never going to like this new Defender, no matter what Land Rover did with it, but purists make up an incredibly small part of the new car buying population. For the rest of us, well, we're just glad there's a Defender back in Land Rover's lineup. And now it's time to give the new Defender a Doug score. Starting with the weekend categories and styling, I like the look of the new Defender a lot, although I'm aware purists think it's too modern or trendy or whatever. I'm sensitive to that, so I'm only giving it a 6 out of 10. Acceleration with the 6-cylinder does 0-60 in 5.3 seconds, so it gets a 5 out of 10. Handling is normal for a car like this, not quite on the level of mid-sized SUVs like the BMW X5, so it gets a 4 out of 10. Fun factor is good, better than most SUVs due to its capabilities off the pavement, and it gets a 6 out of 10. Finally, cool factor, and this is quite cool right now, being the hot new thing and the revival of the Defender, it gets a 6 out of 10 for a total weekend score of 27 out of 50. Next up are the daily categories and features. It's well-equipped, but it misses out on some modern high-tech stuff like basically any level of self-driving beyond adaptive cruise control, and it gets a 7 out of 10. Comfort is impressive considering its capabilities and its rather rough-riding heritage with the old Defender, and it gets a 7 out of 10. Quality is only okay. The interior is fine for what it is, but Land Rover reliability is always a fear, and it gets a 6 out of 10. Practicality is good with a huge cargo area, roomy seating, and an available third row, even though it's small, and it gets a 9 out of 10. Finally, value, and it's a pretty good one. A highly desirable revived brand name with a starting price of around 50 grand. I was worried it would be twice that. It gets a 7 out of 10 for a total daily score of 36 out of 50. Added up in the DUG score is 63 out of 100, which places it here against some relatively close competitors and other new Land Rovers. I like the new Defender more than I expected, and I think it could be great as a family car or an off-roader, and despite the hate from purists for no solid axles or body-on-frame, it's highly capable off-road and well-mannered on-road to appeal to a broad spectrum of buyers.