“Go, go, go!” the instructor in the passenger seat barked as I straightened the front wheels and smashed the accelerator against the firewall. I’d never driven this gravel pit rallycross course before (as it was in England) and had no idea what lay ahead, but — if he wanted me to unleash 600+HP and 6000-lbs of Defender OCTA at whatever lay next — who was I to argue?
By now, you should know what the OCTA is. It’s an unprecedented level of high-speed off-road prowess that fuses the world’s most sophisticated active dampers, good old wheel travel, and power — lots of power! The latter bit, there’s no shame in saying, is the same engine (more or less) that you get in a BMW M5. Yeah, kind of awesome, no? The suspension is called 6D, and that’s because it can adjust for compression, rebound, pitch, yaw, roll, dive, squat — and probably more — and do it a million times a second (or something like that). Then, there’s knobby tires that are indestructible, wide fender flares, skid plates, and some other bits and bobs you can read about on the Land Rover site.
What you can’t read about there is what it feels like to rocket across absurdly uneven terrain at 100+ km/h. It was probably faster, but I was well into tunnel vision — not because I don’t know better, but because we were actually in a tunnel carved from trees — and rocketing across gravel with absolute abandon. Or so it seemed. With four-foot pits and four-foot jumps you’d surely destroy any other SUV, but the OCTA takes it all in stride, literally.
What followed the “Go, go, go!” moment was a 100-metre long drift at over 100 km/h, gravel absolutely pummelling the fender liners and paintwork, gnarly tires tearing at the loose surface for traction and suspension floating over inhospitable terrain. My drift was wide (in my defence, just doing what I was instructed), and we moved down 30 metres of sapling or brush or something, and then launched what felt like metres into the air, landing on one front tire in a gulley. Honesty, I thought we were cooked. But no: the OCTA absorbed it all like a puppy in a toilet paper commercial. It’s easily one of the most impressive acts of physics-defying automotive technology I’ve witnessed (and I haven’t told you about the ride up the Goodwood circuit in a Range Rover Sport SV yet).
The OCTA is designed and built for over-landing; flat-out, high-speed, rugged terrain distance-swallowing — the likes of which there’s nowhere to do in Canada, it seems. Fortunately, it’s a blast on-road, too, with its Dakar looks and sophisticated suspension delivering great ride and handling on tarmac, just as it does in a gravel pit of the Mojave desert. And then there’s the stance, the triple amber front lights set the tone for its ultra wide-body bodacious-ness. Wide, mean, tactical… it stands out in a sea of jellybean and outright shipping container box SUVs.
Read more about the OCTA’s features and design with SHARP.
