New Land Rover Defender diesel sold out

If you’re keen on a diesel version of the new Land Rover Defender 110 or any type of Defender 90 two-door then you're in for a long wait.

All 20MY Defender 110 diesels are spoken for in Australia ahead of first customer deliveries in August, and the Defender 90 is now unlikely to arrive here this year due to coronavirus-related production delays.

Jaguar Land Rover Australia won’t disclose how many vehicles are in its initial allocation of 20MY Defender 110s, but said 58 per cent of pre-orders were for diesel models -- the two cheapest models in the range, the entry-level D200 priced at $69,990 plus ORCs and the D240 (from $75,900).

Therefore the only new Defender 110 available to order now is the petrol-powered P400 priced from $95,700.

Pricing for the Defender 90, meantime, is yet to be announced ahead of first local deliveries, which were most recently due in October.

But just 100 examples of the born-again Defender ‘shortie’ have been earmarked for Australia initially, all of them fully-loaded 20MY P400 First Edition models likely to be priced near $100,000.

And Land Rover Australia PR manager James Scrimshaw this week told carsales their arrival will likely to be delayed until next year due to supply constraints.

“The Defender 90 is most likely to slip into Q1, 2021 rather that late 2020 as originally planned,” he said.

“We will know more in the next couple of months when the Nitra plant is running up to full speed again. They are quite behind on Defender 110 production due to the shutdown so focus is on 110 at present.”

Scrimshaw stressed that petrol versions of the 20MY Defender 110 were still available to order and that Land Rover Australia would soon announce availability of petrol and diesel versions of the 21MY Defender 90 and 110.

“I can confirm that the 20MY Defender 110 diesel allocation [D200/D240] for Australia has all been sold, thus the reason for not having further stock of these derivatives available at present.

“There has been an impact on production and there are severe limitations on the entry-level D200 and the D240 diesel derivatives. The [P400] petrol model has not been affected and is available to order now.

“We may see some 21MYs towards the end of the year, which includes Defender 90, but that timing is still moving around a bit. We will soon be able to provide an update on the 21MY model line-up -- including diesel.”

As a reminder, P400 versions of the reincarnated Land Rover Defender are powered by a 3.0-litre inline six-cylinder turbo-petrol engine with 48-volt mild-hybrid tech, producing a generous 297kW of power (400hp, hence the name) and 550Nm of torque.

The two initial diesel powertrains are 147kW (D200) and 176kW (D240) versions of the same 2.0-litre four-cylinder turbo-diesel.

Australians won’t be offered Europe’s 224kW/400Nm 2.0-litre turbo-petrol four-cylinder (P300) engine, but a 221kW 3.0-litre inline six-cylinder turbo-diesel will be forthcoming, along with plug-in hybrid and perhaps V8 power.

There is no manual, but the recently revealed Hard Top commercial derivative is under consideration for Australia.

All Defenders come standard with an eight-speed automatic transmission, two-speed transfer case with low-range and permanent four-wheel drive.

Among the array of options for the new model, which is based on an aluminium monocoque platform dubbed D7x rather than a steel ladder frame like all previous Defenders, is an optional rear diff lock, underbody protection and rooftop tent.