New Land Rover Defender out testing with the Red Cross

The new Land Rover Defender has been out testing with the Red Cross in Dubai as Land Rover demonstrate the new Defender’s all-terrain abilities.

If the new Land Rover Defender is going to work for Land Rover, it’s going to have to be more than a boulevardier for the wealthy pretending they’re just back from a jaunt on the dunes. It’s going to have to be the real off-road deal. 

To that end, Land Rover is taking its everlasting tease for the new Defender on rufty-tufty outings, like the Kenyan jaunt with Tusk, to try and demonstrate the new Defender really is the real deal.

Now Land Rover’s mission to show the Defender to those who will, hopefully, put it to work in extreme conditions moves on to the deserts of Dubai, and the 4×4 experts at the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC).

Land Rover briefed the IFRC 4×4 experts on the new Defender’s abilities before letting them loose on the sand dunes and twisty roads of the Jebel Jais highway to let them play and to get a feel for the iconic Defender’s replacement.

Ilir Caushaj, IFRC’s Fleet Manager, said:

We operate in some of the most hard-to-reach places on earth, often working in very difficult terrain, so our teams have to be able to cope with anything. That’s why we’re proud to have partnered with Land Rover since 1954, and to be putting their new Defender to the test, as together they help us reach vulnerable communities in crisis, whoever and wherever in the world they are.

So that’s Africa and the Middle East ticked off the list of harsh environments the Defender can excel. Where next before the new Defender arrives in September?