![]() ![]() While max power output was still a modest 90kW at 3500rpm, peak torque was now up to 360Nm at 2000rpm. In 2007, a 2.4-litre Ford turbo-diesel replaced the Td5 and was mated to a six-speed manual. ![]() The Defender Xtreme (as the wagon was marketed here) scored electronic traction control from 2000, and the model line-up was largely unchanged until the short-wheelbase Defender 90 arrived in 2003. The 300Tdi was replaced by a new five-cylinder Td5 engine in 1998 featuring Electronic Unit Injection, with power and torque now up to 90kW at 4200rpm and 300Nm at 1950rpm respectively. ![]() All of these coil-spring models are now retrospectively referred to as Defenders. The following year the coil-spring 90 (actually a 93-inch wheelbase) variant was introduced, followed again by the long-wheelbase 127 model. While the Stage 1 still ran leaf-spring suspension, Land Rover already had plenty of experience with coil springs thanks to the development and launch of the Range Rover a decade earlier, and this technology was applied to the Land Rover in March 1983 with the launch of the 110. Instead of the SD5, in 1980 Land Rover launched the Series III Stage 1 model with a 3.5-litre V8 engine, and this was essentially a practice run for what would come next. “If circumstances had been different, you know, if they had launched an all-new vehicle instead of the 110, that looked a little bit like a Range Rover, but a pick-up, what you’d probably have now is a vehicle which is very, very similar to everybody else.” “They knew that they really had to make a new vehicle (the SD5 project) but they didn’t,” continues Mike. “In the post ’70s, there wasn’t terribly much money available for development of a new vehicle,” explains Mike Bishop, Land Rover Classic Product Specialist. ![]()
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