Features

My first ever snog was the gamekeeper's son. But before you think I'm going to get all Lady Chatterley on you, I would like to point out there were no heaving haunches or profane four-letter words. I was only 10 years old, for God's sake. Was it in the back of a Land Rover Defender? No, I'll come to that in a minute.

Mark was the leader of a gang that were off all-day on their BMXs doing stunts, building dens and playing war games. Being the feisty tomboy I was, I wanted to be part of all that and naively thought that if I tolerated this amorous ambush next to the duck pond, he might relax the 'no girls rule'.

He didn't, of course, but it wasn't such a disappointment. I got to spend all my summer holidays on the farm, surrounded by country, hitching rides in the combine harvester and clambering over the John Deere tractors. You see, I might look like a stiletto-heeled urban slut but I am, at heart, a country maiden with a love of all things agricultural. And cars don't come more agricultural than the Land Rover Defender.

The backbone of the British farming community since 1948 and hard-core military mud plugger, it is one of the few genuinely iconic cars. Five million have been built over the years, and an estimated 75 per cent are still running. The first Land Rover I ever drove was a Defender 110 Station Wagon. And if you can drive that you can drive anything.

In a scarily changing world, they remain comfortingly the same - proof of how functional this design is. The Defender is a survivor, with pedigree and character. Any car used by the SAS gets my vote.

For the most part - and despite its burgeoning urban kudos - the Defender remains a car built for, and bought by, people in the sticks, those who actually need the kind of things it's got to offer. But what if you take the boy out of the country? Can the Defender survive in the urban jungle just as effectively? I had a week with one to find out.

Monday
I am so excited about the newly fettled Land Rover Defender 90 arriving, I hover by the window all morning drinking coffee. By the time it arrives in the back of an articulated lorry, my heart is beating so hard and fast, I feel as though the creature from Alien is about to burst out of my chest cavity.

The massive truck blocks the whole road causing carnage. But when people see this big, black, beautiful beast reversed off the trailer, they stop bitching and honking. Talk about road presence.

The only difference exterior-wise on this gen Defender is the bonnet bulge - the Ford 2.4-litre diesel engine (similar to the one found in the Transit) needs extra space to keep its electrics above water when it wades. Apart from that bulge, and the fact it's so clean and shiny instead of battered and dirty, it's so far, so familiar.

I hurl myself into the driver's seat. Something feels wrong. I instantly miss the ineffective blower levers and flaps under the windscreen, but that's not it. It's not even the new integrated dash with the circular vents from the Focus and all the switches, dials and buttons on the centre console. Nor is it the fact that it comes with an all-LED instrument illumination and an iPod thingy, even if in a Defender this is the equivalent of an ejector seat in terms of sophistication.