Driving the Defender Octa at the Original Land Rover Experience

• What it is: I got to drive the Land Rover Defender Octa at Land Rover's Eastnor Castle off-road experience.
• Why it matters: The Defender Octa is the ultimate off-road version of the Defender, and it shines in this environment.
• What Edmunds says: Land Rover puts its (substantial) money where its mouth is with the Octa.

To recap, the Defender Octa starts with the regular Defender, which combines rugged off-road capability with the kind of interior comfort and quiet you'd expect from a luxury brand like Land Rover. But there's more to the Octa than just wide-body fenders and a lifted suspension. While most Defenders have an inline six-cylinder engine under the hood, the Octa uses a twin-turbocharged 4.4-liter V8. Putting out 626 horsepower and 523 lb-ft of torque, the Octa is a beast. The Octa's unique suspension has no anti-roll bars. Instead, it uses an active system of hydraulics called 6D that performs the same function using the Octa's shock absorbers. A computer constantly monitors the body's motions and pumps hydraulic fluid where it's needed most to keep the Octa level and comfortable on the road. The advantage of this complicated system is superior off-road wheel travel without needing to disconnect the anti-roll bars, as you would in a Wrangler. It also means that if you go fast and get all four wheels off the ground, the suspension knows this and prepares to bring it in for as soft and controlled a landing as possible — within reason, of course.

Having fun storming the castle

The roughly 66 miles of off-road trails winding through the 5,000 acres around Eastnor Castle are part of the Land Rover Experience, an off-road opportunity for owners and paying customers to take the company's vehicles off-road and test their dirt-driving chops. Eastnor's not the only one. In fact, there are 49 facilities around the world, including two active centers in the U.S.

But Eastnor is where it all started. Land Rover has been developing its vehicles here since 1961. In 1990, it opened to the public as the first Land Rover Experience, allowing customers to drive their luxury SUVs off-road in a controlled environment, honing their skills before taking on unfamiliar trails in the wild.

That doesn't mean the trails at Eastnor are easy. Quite the opposite. The deep ruts challenge ground clearance, the steep slopes tax four-wheel-drive traction, the close quarters almost guarantee you'll get branch marks on your paint, and it's usually a muddy, slippery mess, although it was uncharacteristically dry during my adventure. 

It's also beautiful. The trails snake through lovely English woods and fields. The growth is aggressive, with plants constantly poking and scraping against the sides of the vehicles; a crew occasionally trims the greenery back just to keep the trails passable. Occasionally, the trail bursts into a hilltop clearing, offering a commanding view of the countryside and the castle itself. 

It's like the Octa was made for this

The day was divided into three parts. In the morning, after a quick talk about the Octa itself and a brief glance at the new Defender Vertex — Octa-inspired looks but focusing on around-town drivability — I hit the trails in an Octa, swapping in with other drivers. This was low-speed stuff through deeply rutted trails, giving us an opportunity to try the Octa's various terrain modes. Land Rover calls them "Terrain Response" modes, and there are four to choose from: Sand, Mud and Ruts, Grass/Gravel/Snow, and Rock Crawl. There's also Octa mode itself, which I'd get to explore a little later. The Defender also includes multiple cameras to help maneuver through tight and tricky spaces. They proved especially useful on the Octa, which is nearly 3 inches wider than a standard Defender, leaving mere inches separating the body from rocks and tree roots jutting from the ground. I found the cameras focused on the front wheels especially useful on the narrow trails.

To maximize ground clearance over the most deeply rutted sections, I put the Octa in its Mud and Ruts setting. This lifts the suspension to its maximum drivable condition — there's an even higher "tippy toes" function that I'll get to in a bit — for a total of 12.7 inches of ground clearance. The mode also adjusts the gas pedal for less sensitivity to keep you from spinning the wheels from a standstill. However, it also allows more wheelspin once you're moving, which sounds contradictory, but that extra spin can help clear mud from the treads to improve traction. Of course, the trails were mostly bone dry on our morning drive, but it's nice to know the function exists if conditions were different. 

Suffice it to say, the Octa easily handled every trail we attempted. Through different modes, including a slippery rock slope that demanded Rock Crawl and low-range gearing, the Octa sailed through as if it were designed for these trails. Which, of course, it was. 

Fast fun from the passenger seat

Our lunchtime spot sat astride a wide-open field that's surely far more lush most of the time. Instead, it was dry grass lined with gravel roads, on which we were given demonstration runs in the passenger seat of the Octa's high-speed capabilities in Octa mode. Designed for high speeds on dirt, sand and gravel roads, it's activated by a long press of the Octa button on the steering wheel. Among other things, Octa mode preps the fancy suspension for possible jumps and landings, allowing for more softness to absorb bumps at high speed. Octa mode also allows up to 82% of engine power to be sent to the rear wheels. 

In the passenger seat, I was once again paired with Killian, my pro-driver monitor on the morning circuit. He explained how the Octa mode altered the Defender's systems. For example, the antilock braking is specifically designed to let the brakes lock a little bit, which helps build up loose material in front of the tires that helps slow the vehicle better on unimproved roads. It also unleashes the full power of the V8 engine and opens up the active exhaust system to pipe in more of the engine's roar.

Once the course was clear, we were off, Killian rolling forward then mashing the throttle. It is undeniably fast, building speed on the loose gravel the way a sports car would on solid asphalt. The softer suspension was immediately put to use as the Octa cleared a small rise, not quite getting air but definitely coming close before regaining its composure. Control was the key; the Octa quickly rambled over the gravel two-track, and while I wouldn't characterize the ride as "smooth," it wasn't jarring, especially considering the speeds at which we were traveling. Through a quick slalom and then a long, fast right-hand turn, it was obvious the stability control was preventing the Octa's tendency to engage in powerslides.  

But what fun is that? Killian asked if I was up for another lap, and I quickly said yes. This time, he set the stability control to the TracDSC mode, and it became immediately apparent once he hit the course how much more slip-and-slide action that mode allows. The rear end was looser, so Killian added more countersteer through the turns and slalom, eventually ending with a long drift where, finally, the stability control decided we'd had enough fun and reined us in. 

At the end of the day, it was all maybe a bit silly to slide around in the dirt in an SUV that costs as much as a condo in San Antonio. But big, dirty fun is what the Octa promises, and it's gratifying to see this expensive SUV can actually cash the checks it's writing. 

Once more, this time with mud

With lunch and Octa-mode demos finished, I jumped at an additional opportunity to explore the Eastnor Castle grounds. This time, Simon was my instructor, and he took us to a new path, one that finally engaged in some of the Experience's famous mud. That, of course, called for the Mud and Ruts mode, allowing the Octa to dig into the slippery muck with ease. 

I could easily feel the transition from dry hardpack to soft mud through the steering wheel, as well as when the Defender slipped slightly on the slicker surface. At one point, my timidity got the better of me and the Defender couldn't quite get over a tree root that had taken over part of the trail. It took more gas and a couple of tries before the V8 roared and the Octa lurched over the obstacle. 

As we traveled over deep ruts, Simon was eager to show off one more hidden feature of the Octa. We straddled one of the deeper ruts, and he attempted to lower the suspension. Instead, the truck detected the ground underneath, triggering an alert on the dash. This allowed me to enable a special Extended mode for the suspension, which pumps the air springs up to their maximum height. The idea is to help you over an obstacle that the regular 12.7 inches can't quite clear, putting the Defender on its tippy toes for maximum clearance. It's not meant for extended travel, but it's handy in emergencies. 

So what's all this, then?

Cynics out there right now are likely frothing at the mouth. "A Wrangler could do that for half the cost or less," they say, and they're not wrong. Heck, you could buy a Wrangler Rubicon plus a loaded Grand Wagoneer for the same price as the Octa. You could also further miss the point by filling your stomach with a Big Mac instead of beef Wellington.  

More realistically, look to the Mercedes-Benz G-Class, specifically the AMG G 63 version. While the top-dog G-wagen retains off-road capability, the assumption is that it'll never see dirt. A quick glance at the "build yours" website doesn't even show all-terrain tires as an option (although they're available for the base G 550). The Octa assumes the opposite: You're going to take this thing off-road, and it's ready out of the box with all-terrain tires — pick from three different ones — and all that gear ready to go. Adding capability and encouraging the driver to use it makes the Octa more interesting to me, and in this imaginary comparison, it's where I'd park my fantasy dollars.