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2020 Land Rover Defender Teased Once Again, This Time In Kenya

If in doubt, teaser after teaser or special edition after special edition. That appears to be the modus operandi of Land Rover these days, hard times if you remember that Jaguar Land Rover was in a financial slump in the third quarter of 2018.
2020 Land Rover Defender 29 photos
Photo: Land Rover
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The British brands posted a pre-tax profit of £120 million in the fourth quarter “after transformation costs,” signaling to investors that the good times are coming back. The Defender is also coming back, but it’ll be a different breed from the body-on-frame utility vehicle that was once called… wait for it… the Series.

Scheduled to premiere in September for the 2020 model year, the Defender will transition from body-on-frame to unibody. The Ingenium inline-six engine family complements the Modular Longitudinal Platform like a hand in glove, but the air suspension at the rear might not be to the liking of off-road enthusiasts.

Developed for mild-hybrid, plug-in hybrid, and electric vehicles, the MLA promises a lot in the case of the Defender. Can you imagine an electric version of the short-wheelbase 90 with a lithium-ion battery and dual-motor setup to bring the point home? Now that would be an interesting competitor to the upcoming Wrangler EV, expected to be launched by 2022. Earlier still, 2020 will see the introduction of the Wrangler PHEV.

Turning our attention back to the Defender, Land Rover finished testing in Kenya while supporting the lion conservation initiatives in Africa. A prototype with tons of camouflage “was used by wildlife managers to support conservation operations across the 14,000-hectare Borana Conservancy.”

As if that wasn’t enough, the most off-road Land Rover for the 2020 model year has been put to the test by towing supplies, fording rivers, and tracking lions. One of the prototypes was fitted with a snorkel on the left-hand side of the vehicle in order to negotiate deeper waters, which means that Land Rover might be working on official accessories for the Defender as we speak.

“We are now in the advanced stages of the new Defender’s testing and development phase. Working with our partners at Tusk in Kenya enabled us to gather valuable performance data,” said Nick Collins, vehicle line director. “The Borana reserve features a wide range of challenging environments, making it a perfect place to test to the extreme the all-terrain attributes of the new Defender.”

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About the author: Mircea Panait
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After a 1:43 scale model of a Ferrari 250 GTO sparked Mircea's interest for cars when he was a kid, an early internship at Top Gear sealed his career path. He's most interested in muscle cars and American trucks, but he takes a passing interest in quirky kei cars as well.
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