Land Rover Defender 130 - long-term review

We wave a tearful goodbye to the car that may have ruined me forever. More on that in a bit, but first a farewell road trip to the French Alps for a week’s skiing – aka one final examination, of the car not my parallel turns. Can the Defender do proper long-haul comfort, swallow all our kit without having to pile cool boxes on the kid’s heads, look after us if it gets snowy up in the hills (wishful thinking this late in the season) and deliver us to our log cabin without sucking France’s petrol pumps, and my wallet, dry?

The joy of lobbing everything in the back, rather than careful packing into four suitcases, shall never grow old. Here, with the third row folded, it wasn’t even close, no packing jigsaw required - I just piled it in and off we went. Once in France, a three minute drive to the ski lift each morning meant skis were all lobbed in the back – again no roof rack faff required, just slide everything in and everyone still gets a proper seat. Sorry Land Rover about the Eau du ski boot.

Back to the drive down and my wife confirms this is the comfiest car I’ve ever run. She clarifies it’s not necessarily the smoothest or quietest, but the sense of space and utility more than makes up for it. Give that woman a job at Top Gear! It’s true, luxury isn’t just knurled this and quilted that, it’s space, a raised view of the road and knowing there’s a depth of capability you’ll probably never need.

I thought driving something this size would be a chore, but it’s amazing how quickly you acclimatise when it reacts to your inputs like something (slightly) smaller. And can we just give it up for the French autoroutes? Yes the tolls are a pain in the backside, but a legal 85mph and zero congestion the whole way down and back was a joy. Just set the radar cruise and settle into an audio book.

I took a risk with the tyres – having peeked at the forecast I decided full winters wouldn’t be necessary. It was a good call; the town we stayed in – Samoens - at the foot of the Grand Massif ski area is actually down at 700m above sea level, and you get a bubble car up to the start of the ski area at 1650. By the time we got down from the slushy slopes mid-afternoon, kids knackered, it was hot enough for shorts and t-shirts in town.

As for costs there and back – we drove 1,252 miles at 19.3mpg and filled up four times costing €490 in total. Factor in tolls and the Eurotunnel and we’re talking around €750 (£635). Clearly if we weren’t in a V8 behemoth you could bring this down a fair bit, but still definitely cheaper than flights for four plus car hire or transfers. And you don’t get your own fridge in the armrest on Easyjet.

A timely encapsulation then of why I’ve fallen for the Defender 130 so hard – and why I’m still surprised it only accounts for 10 per cent of UK Defender sales. Admittedly it’s the most awkward looking of the 90/100/130 trio by quite some margin, but there wasn’t a box it didn’t check – more boot space that you could realistically need, always seats to spare, easy to operate, faultlessly reliable during our seven months together (shocker, I know), the V8 adds a bit of naughty, and when it’s needed to look after us off-road (or more realistically, to mount a grass verge to let traffic past) it’s got capability by the dumpster load.

If I was only allowed to drive one car for the rest of my life – something that had to cover every single base - it would probably be this.