This Land Rover Defender Will Be Heading To The Dakar Rally

A year ago today, Land Rover announced it would be launching an official Defender entry into the Dakar Rally, and in that time, the teaser campaign has been relentless. Plenty of testing shots, driver announcements or some vaguely related news have landed in our email inboxes since.

Finally, though, the car that will be competing in the World Rally Raid Championship has been revealed in full, just over a month before the 2026 Dakar Rally kicks off on 3 January.

Meet the Defender Dakar D7X-R, which has been built to W2RC regulations to enter the championship’s new ‘Stock’ category, which is to say the car isn’t some kind of tube chassis, purpose-built raid racer. Rather, it’s based on a Defender Octa with some choice modifications.

Retained from that car is the BMW-sourced, 4.4-litre twin-turbocharged V8 without any mechanical changes, beyond a restrictor to reduce power from its 626bhp factory form in accordance with FIA regulations.

That does get an upgraded cooling system, though, with one large radiator replacing the road car’s smaller triple setup. The grille and bonnet have also had slight redesigns to improve airflow.

The eight-speed ZF torque converter automatic is retained from the Octa road car too, albeit with a lower final drive ratio in a bid to deliver peak torque at a lower rev range. Oh, and probably the coolest powertrain change of all is the ECU’s ‘Flight Mode’, adjusting torque delivery whenever the car gets some airtime to minimise rough landings.

W2RC regulations stipulate that the Defender has to retain its production bodyshell, but do allow for some pretty significant changes to the suspension system. That results in D7X-R-specific Bilstein dampers, with coil-overs at the front and parallel twins at the rear.

Given that the Defender Octa already exists, we wouldn’t expect Land Rover to put an even more hardcore DX7-R road car on sale, though we’d love to see it…