Access Motors launches ‘new’ Land Rover Defender

Text and pic by Steve A. Morrell

The Land Rover Defender, or the ‘new’ LR  Defender, was launched in Sri Lanka recently. It’s quite a new concept from its original ‘work horse’ image  that we saw on our roads as far back as the late ‘40s. At that time the Land Rover was the accepted all purpose machine used for all rough jobs that involved extreme terrain.

It was used in outdoor work, including as a facilitator in uprooting trees, for example, and plied jungle tracks that other off road vehicles could not cope with.

The New Defender was designed to handle all such jobs but the difference lies in the   design, including cabin comfort and the luxury of the latest electronic devices. The new Defender is the expected ‘work horse’ but is much more than the original ‘40s machine.

CEO Access Motors (Pvt.) Ltd. Ravi Perera, confirmed the  content of the instructional video and testified to its multi functional capacity for  the roughest of jobs.

 Perera said Access Motors targets around 100 to 150 units of the new Land Rover each year; including the Ranger Rover, which was the top of the  class machine in the Land Rover range of machines available here in Sri Lanka.

The  New Defender also includes multiple  price options. And models to suite such choices; the short wheel base to the long wheel base models, that also include seat capacity and option factors.

 Prices range from Rs. 20 million to around 40 million. Such prices would depend on the vagaries of government policy on import of such vehicles.

It was also noted that the Land Rover and its various models continue to be manufactured in England. These are as original as the first  Land Rover which was imported in the post Second World War years, CEO Perera said.