New Land Rover Defender 90 costs from £40,290 – but it’s not the Land Rover Defender you’ll actually want

The new Land Rover Defender 90 – the smaller Defender – goes on sale in the UK with prices starting at £40,290, £5k less than the Defender 110.

It’s almost six months since the new Land Rover Defender was revealed, but although we got to see both the Defender 90 and Defender 110, Land Rover hadn’t made their minds up how much the Defender 90 will cost. But now they have.

At £45k, the new Defender 110 is quite a long way from the utilitarian and iconic Land Rover Defender that started out in 1948, but then Land Rover are aiming at a while new demographic with the new Defender 110, and although you can buy a Defender 110 from £45k, you can also spend £100k on a fully-specced Defender 110.

So the arrival of the smaller Defender 90 is an opportunity, you’d have thought, to offer a much more basic Defender with a starting price which might just appeal to those looking for a Defender workhorse. But it doesn’t.

Starting at £40,290, the Defender 90 may be £5k less than the Defender 110, but it’s too much for those wanting a workhorse – they’d probably choose a Toyota Land Cruiser starting at £5k less – and too utilitarian for that new demographic of urban on-roaders wanting something a bit more ‘authentic’.

That £40k Defender 90 is for the basic Defender with 197bhp D200 diesel engine, and as soon as you start opting for a more appealing ICE then the price goes up as you opt for the 237bhp D240, 296bhp P300 or the 395bhp six-cylinder P400. 

And the price also goes up by quite a chunk when you start to add the ‘Packs’ Land Rover offers to make the Defender 90 more appealing too, with stuff like the Explorer Pack at £3,400, the Adventure Pack at £2,400, the Country Pack at £1,500 and the Urban Pack at £500, not mention posh alloys at up to £3,700, Windsor leather at £5,100, Driver Assist at £1,700, an active electronic diff at £1,000 and much, much more.

They all add goodies to the mix, but by the time you spec an engine and goodies you actually want, the Defender 90 is likely to cost you well over £60k.

That, of course, may not harm sales one bit, and Land Rover are very bullish about sales, telling us that demand is high and 1.21 million people have specced-up a new Defender online, and more than half have added option packs.

But it seems likely 1.2 million of those 1.21 million were simply playing with the configurator. We certainly have.