Introduction to the 2025 Defender Octa
There have been V8-powered Land Rovers since 1979, and even the new generation of the Defender (launched in 2020) has deployed Jaguar Land Rover's own 5.0-litre supercharged V8 for a while now. However, this Octa is the most-powerful Defender we've ever seen, with up to 635hp on tap from a BMW-sourced twin-turbo 4.4-litre V8.
Land Rover claims the Octa is as thrilling to drive as some top-end, high-performance SUVs when it's on the road, and yet it's as capable as any other Defender when it's away from the tarmac; in fact, more capable, as it's almost like a closed-body alternative to the demented Ford Ranger Raptor.
To find out if the Octa, only available in the middle-length '110' body format of the Defender family, is truly a master of all trades, we went to the Scottish Borders to sample it.
Pros & Cons of the 2025 Defender Octa
Pros: Astounding drivetrain, magnificent on- and off-road, the best-driving Defender by miles
Cons: Expensive, rare, thirsty, perhaps too aggressively styled for some
Exterior & Design of the 2025 Defender Octa
• Wider wheel arches and aggressive stance
• Big 20- or 22-inch wheels, depending on tyres
• Only available as a '110'
The Defender Octa is designed to stand out as the most dominant model in the lineup, featuring an increased width of 68mm compared to the standard version - thanks to its distinctive, flared-out wheel arches - and it's 28mm taller, putting its roof at just shy of two metres off the deck.
Exclusive, matte-effect paint finishes, such as Faroe Green and Petra Copper, further denote this model, while it also has its own design of angled, quad-exit exhaust pipes at the rear, the tailgate is painted contrast black, plus there's a little 'diamond on a circle' logo on the C-pillars (behind the rear doors) which is to denote the octagonal internal structure of a diamond, from which this variant takes its name.
The Defender Octa's dimensions are:
Length: 5,003mm (4,813mm excluding rear-mounted spare wheel)
Width: 2,105mm (or 2,064mm mirrors folded)
Height: 1,995mm
Wheelbase: 3,023mm
There's no doubting the Octa has some serious presence, although you can only have this in the five-door, mid-length 110 body format. There are V8 versions of the three-door 90 and five-door 130, but these use the old JLR 5.0-litre supercharged unit. The 110 is also available with the supercharged V8 (as the P425) for those who don't need - or can't afford - the Octa's sheer brawn.
Wheel sizes are 20-inch or 22-inch. The latter is reserved for a set of road-biased tyres, which sacrifice the Octa's ultimate off-road capability for greater handling attributes and a higher top speed of 250km/h. A middle-ground off-road tyre is an option, which reduces the top speed to a limited 209km/h, and then there's an extreme all-terrain tyre that further caps the Land Rover's maximum speed to 159km/h. Both the off-road options can only be fitted to the 20-inch wheels, and it is the most off-road-focused Goodyear Wranglers we sampled for this test.
Interior, Practicality, Tech & Comfort of the 2025 Defender Octa
• Nicely appointed cabin
• Good level of tech
• Looks very similar to every other Defender inside
If you've sat in any version of the second-generation Defender since 2020, then you'll know that its interior is a mix of the 4x4 utilitarian, to pay homage to its ancestors, with a smattering of SUV-like luxury mixed in.
It's a largely successful fusion, with some pleasingly no-nonsense details such as exposed Allen-bolt heads on the door cards and centre console, as well as a grab-handle extrusion on the passenger-side of the dashboard above the indented 'Defender' lettering. These somehow don't sit at odds with the leather-lined opulence of the Land Rover's character.
That said, apart from a microfibre headlining, an Octa-logoed button on the steering wheel, some glass-tipped paddle shifts behind the wheel and - on the even more expensive and limited Edition 1 model - sections of exposed, 'chopped' carbon-fibre trim where the material is sourced from waste aerospace production, the Octa's cabin doesn't feel appreciably more luxuriant or special than that of a D250 Defender at the other end of the range. You could easily sit in this 635hp model's cabin and not pick up on any of the handful of its unique design flourishes at all.
That said, practicality is as good in the Octa as it is in any other 110, with loads of useful in-cabin storage, plenty of room onboard for four people (five at a push, for shorter journeys) and a large boot - which is nevertheless accessed by the Defender's traditional side-hinged tailgate, so remember not to park the Octa too close to objects or other cars behind it if you want to unload your luggage/goods at the end of a journey.
Visibility out of the Land Rover is excellent, due to the lofty driving position you're in, but just getting there can be a struggle; the Octa is so tall and even further off the ground than any other Defender, and if it's not fitted with the optional electrically operated fold-out side steps, then the sill of the passenger compartment is a long way up. We were particularly aware of this during one off-road section, where we'd parked the Octa next to a slight compression in grassy ground, and the sill ended up being as high as our upper thigh when we were standing next to the 4x4.
There are some fancy seats available for the Octa, which can pulse in time to the music on the sound system, but otherwise it's as-per other Defenders inside. This is welcome news - the Pivi Pro curved infotainment measuring 11.4 inches is one of the better touchscreen systems on the market, while the 12.3-inch digital instrument cluster and associated head-up display (HUD) for the driver are good and clear to use on the move.
Select 'Sport' for the gearbox or click the Defender into 'Octa' mode using the button on the steering wheel, and the HUD adds a little rev counter image, so you know immediately when to shift up.
There is also the ClearSight Rear-View technology on the Octa, which means an interior mirror which either shows a plain view with reflective glass, or which can be flipped to offer a camera-feed image from atop the Defender's tailgate. Audiophiles will enjoy the potent 15-speaker, 700-watt Meridian Surround Sound system in the Octa, too.
Performance of the 2025 Defender Octa
• Phenomenal acceleration from V8 biturbo
• Handles superbly, astonishing off-road capability
• Off-road tyres do limit ultimate road-holding
Any modern Land Rover Defender is leagues apart from the old, 'classic' model in terms of its rolling refinement, powertrain strength and handling abilities, but underneath it all the model remains prioritised on its off-road talents above any perception of it being sporty. So, despite the fact that the Defender is of a monocoque construction, rather than body-on-ladder-frame like its forebears, it's still something which is supposed to be more of a 4x4 than an SUV.
Therefore, making a version of the Defender which promises to go toe to dynamic toe with the likes of a Porsche Cayenne or BMW X5 might seem like an exercise in futility. Especially as just dumping a supercharged V8 into it wasn't enough. Prior to our drive of this Octa model, Land Rover sent us a 525hp '90' to sample on a back-to-back basis and, while we loved the short-wheelbase Defender, its suspension is simply too soft and loose to call it a performance model. It's more of a hot rod: a very big engine in a vehicle which probably doesn't need it, nor which can handle it all that well.
The Octa is a completely different kettle of fish, though. It uses the same advanced '6D' hydraulically linked suspension as the Range Rover Sport SV, which gives the Defender an exemplary level of body control. Whether you're on rougher roads or travelling along at motorway speeds, the shell of this Land Rover moves around only a minimal amount, which in turn leads to the dual kinematic Holy Grail of better ride comfort and sharper handling.
That latter aspect would be to no avail if the Defender Octa had light, slow steering, but there's impressive weighting and immediacy to the way the vehicle responds to only minimal inputs from the driver at its wheel.
And so, what the clever suspension and meatier steering add up to is a remarkably agile and enjoyable machine that has a chassis good enough to make use of its stupendous powertrain. About the only criticism we can make is that, at the limit of provocation in tighter corners, the Goodyear Wranglers' tread blocks finally give up the ghost and deform, which leads to a wobble in the Octa's handling feel. But you need to drive the Defender in a deliberately lunatic fashion to get that to happen, and if it bothers you then you'll need the road-focused tyres on the 22s instead.
The 'S68B44' engine in the Octa is deployed in a number of BMW M products and it's a jewel, but it has never sounded as good in a BMW as it does in the Defender. There's a vicious snarl to it at all revs, erupting into a loud and spine-tingling shriek as it closes in on the redline. While a supercharged V8 Land Rover sounds good, it can't hope to compete with the sports-exhaust-enhanced tune of the Octa.
And the speed matches the noise. Land Rover claims a 0-100km/h time of four seconds dead, which - if anything - feels a tad conservative. The way it effortlessly piles on pace all around the rev counter, from either a standing start or for roll-on acceleration, speaks volumes about what 750Nm of torque and a super-slick eight-speed automatic gearbox can do for a car.
While the Octa weighs more than 2.5 tonnes and measures more than five metres long, tip to tail, it never feels it on the road. There's an old cliché about cars that 'shrink' around their driver, because they feel lighter and nimbler than their at-the-kerb stats suggest, and the Octa happily falls into this category.
The most notable area of this is its braking because you never feel like there's not enough stopping power or pedal feel here, which in turn makes eliciting pace from the Defender's mighty drivetrain far less intimidating than you might expect.
Off-road, the Octa feels like an unstoppable force on wheels. It can do slow-speed rock-crawling and walking-pace mud-plugging like any other Defender, old or new, that has come before it, and just to hammer home the point Land Rover asked us to drive it across one very deep river, before then asking us to pilot it upstream in another watercourse to test its colossal 1,000mm wading depth.
Yet, having monstered all of these tasks, we were then invited to drive it at faster speeds in its Octa 'maximum attack' off-road setting, accessed by pressing and holding the same diamond-labelled button on its wheel as the Octa road mode.
And when you've driven a Land Rover Defender at upwards of 100km/h on a muddy, rutted track that's barely any wider than it is, between very solid-looking trees, you're suddenly aware that you're dealing with a wholly different beast here.
The steering takes on millimetre accuracy in such conditions, while the Octa will happily slide into oversteer on low-grip surfaces as it will thump up to 80 per cent torque at its rear wheels given half the chance. It's therefore just marvellous no matter what is under its tyres, proving that Land Rover has aced the brief of making a machine which can dynamically excel everywhere.
Running Costs of the 2025 Defender Octa
• Huge 90-litre fuel tank...
• ...but you'll quickly drain it
• Standard three-year, 100,000km warranty
It goes without saying that running a 635hp, petrol-powered and highly expensive specialist SUV like the Land Rover Defender Octa will only be possible for those with the deepest of deep pockets.
CO2 emissions place it in the highest motor-tax banding of all, requiring €2,400 of annual outlay, and even the official fuel consumption only hovers around the 13 litres/100km (21mpg) mark.
Don't bank on that, though, as we saw a breathtaking 22.8 litres/100km (12.4mpg) when extensively testing the Octa across 200km of road and off-road driving.
Also, Land Rover offers the absolute minimum three-year, 100,000km warranty on its vehicles, so you won't get much cover for the Defender Octa considering its substantial purchase outlay.
Irish Pricing & Rivals of the 2025 Defender Octa
• Effectively €300,000 in Ireland
• Limited build restricts availability
• Just the one engine and body combination
The standard Defender Octa costs about €289,000 in Ireland, while the exclusive Edition One retails beyond €320,000. To put that into perspective, the most affordable Defender 110 is priced at under €100,000.
Land Rover is also only planning to build a maximum of 4,000 Octas a year for worldwide consumption, with less than 1,000 per annum slated for the Octa's homeland, our nearest right-hand-drive market - it's likely that any Irish Octa orders will therefore have to be taken from the UK's allocation, so availability of the ultimate Defender will be scarce here.
Verdict - Should You Buy the 2025 Defender Octa?
If you can get hold of one and you're very rich, then do whatever you can to buy a Land Rover Defender Octa. It is a stupendous engineering achievement, marrying all the handling and powertrain brilliance of a performance SUV with the go-anywhere freedom of a dedicated 4x4 in one desirable package.
It might not be very fashionable to say this, but the Defender Octa delivers a truly memorable and scintillating driving experience that'll live with you long after you've clambered down from its lofty interior.
FAQs About the 2025 Defender Octa
Is the Defender Octa available with any other engine?
No, it is specifically only this high-output, advanced-chassis model, which forms the flagship of the entire Defender family.
Can I get the Land Rover Defender Octa as a 90 or a 130?
No, it is only sold in the 110 format. There are V8 models of both the 90 and 130, but they use the older supercharged engine, with a maximum of 525hp.
Want to know more about the Land Rover Defender Octa?
Is there anything else you'd like to know about the Land Rover Defender Octa? Or anything you feel we haven't covered here? Then just head over to our Ask Us Anything section and, well, ask us anything. It's a free service and we'll do our best to answer your questions.
