Review and test Land Rover Defender 90 Commercial D200

The callsign ‘Land Rover Defender Commercial’ may sound a bit odd – this isn’t a commercial – but it’s still better than ‘Defender gray license plate’. In his homeland, they call him the Defender Hard Top, a name that originated in 1950, when you could first order a detachable fixed roof on a Land Rover instead of a flapping piece of tarpaulin. All these terms mean the same thing: a new Defender, TopGears current Car of the Year, with a whole lot of nothing where you normally find the back seat.

A good thing for the Dutch, because this is the only version of the Defender that is still somewhat affordable here (for entrepreneurs) – since the BPM with CO2 penalty rate for company cars does not apply. Available in both the 90 (three-door with short wheelbase) and the 110 variant, the Defender Commercial is the fairest and most utilitarian version of the venerable Land Rover. A hard-working vehicle, intended to transport heavy, large and important cargo.

A Land Rover Defender as a company car, how do you like that?

In the driver’s seat you don’t realize that you are actually driving a company bus instead of a normal five- or seven-seater Defender. Until you look over your shoulder on the highway to change lanes. A sturdy partition wall (with a window in it so that you still have some view to the rear) separates the occupants from the load and ensures that heavy objects do not fly into your neck during hard braking or a collision. As with any car with a gray license plate, of course. The 90 has 1,355 liters of cargo space and can tow up to 670 kilos, while the 110 swallows more than 2,000 liters and can carry up to 800 kilos of gear.

Easy to clean

Large rubber mats are available in both variants that you can easily rinse. With the 110 you can also opt for a shorter load space, where a handy place for bags and other small items is created between the front seats and the partition. You then give up the option to gain access to your cargo space through the two rear doors, so it just depends on what is easiest for your work.

There are no mechanical changes compared to the passenger Defender. The Commercial uses the same excellent mild-hybrid six-cylinder diesel engines with 200, 250 or 300 horsepower, the same eight-speed automatic transmission and the same chassis as the SUV, so it can do just as well off-road.

How much does the Land Rover Defender Commercial cost in the Netherlands?

The 90 will cost you 48,760 euros net in the Netherlands and the 110 starts at 51,430 euros. In both cases this is without BPM (which you do not pay as an entrepreneur) and without VAT (which you request back). If you added both of those taxes in, the Commercials cost about the same as regular Defenders, which can be had from about 84 grand.

No, this is not the cheapest way to transport your junk. But not all companies work solely on the basis of spreadsheets. Some will use the Defender for what it was made for – think construction or landscaping in hard-to-reach locations. But there are also other good reasons. An example: a new Transit is a lot more convenient food truck than an old Citroën HY, in many ways. Yet there are entrepreneurs who buy such an old bus, restore it, convert it and equip it with coffee machines, pizza ovens and whatnot. Why? Because those things are cool. Just like the Land Rover Defender Commercial. And certainly as 90 with white steel wheels…