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2020 Land Rover Defender: Is This It?

As we're edging closer to the official reveal of the all-new Land Rover Defender, one photo of a semi-finished prototype has leaked out onto the web.
2020 Land Rover Defender: Are You It? 1 photo
Photo: autoweek.nl
We're not sure what the source of the image is. The square format hints at an Instagram post, but many websites link this article by Auto Week. Regardless, the car we believe to be the new Defender is sitting without a hood and grille in a well-lit room, which we believe to be a paint and final inspection booth.

What's probably happening here is that Land Rover is making a super-shiny pre-production model to show at the reveal. While the hood is missing, several other details line up with the other 2020 Defender leak, which was a photo from the digital cluster.

Color us unimpressed

While the new Defender has a retro vibe, we're not sure where the company was going with this look. After the Velar and Discovery facelift, we maybe had too much faith in their capabilities. The round lights inside a square frame are more Lada than Mercedes G-Class, while those 5-spoke wheels must have been stolen from the old Camaro.

We could also complain about the cheap-looking silver plastic and the tiny fender flares. But really, we just need to point towards the old DC100 Concept of 2011 and say: "this is what it should have been."

Everything other than the exterior design promises to be good. The interior will have a more rugged configuration of the parts from used by Range Rovers, which is fine. Meanwhile, the suspension and engines will as good as any SUV you can think of, not just off-roading, but also normal everyday driving. We're talking about super-comfortable air ride and potentially 400 horsepower from an inline-6 turbo, though economical diesels will probably be more popular in Europe.
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About the author: Mihnea Radu
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Mihnea's favorite cars have already been built, the so-called modern classics from the '80s and '90s. He also loves local car culture from all over the world, so don't be surprised to see him getting excited about weird Japanese imports, low-rider VWs out of Germany, replicas from Russia or LS swaps down in Florida.
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