LAND ROVER DEFENDER 90 X-TECH

In the sleepy, bucolic hamlets of Northern England they border on the ubiquitous: hoary unkempt Land Rover Defender 90s, the lustre of their earthy green paintwork obscured by a healthy spattering of farmyard detritus, every panel riddled with blemishes from tussles with over-enthusiastic livestock.  With its rugged demeanour, all-terrain prowess and simple mechanicals, the Land Rover Defender is the de facto vehicle of choice for rural practitioners of both crop and animal husbandry alike.

But what of the urban agriculturalist? What is the city-dwelling farmer, who perhaps dabbles in a spot of recreational drug dealing, to do? Fortunately Land Rover have the vehicular answer in the shape of the Defender X-Tech Limited Edition. The X-Tech takes the rustic charms of the standard Defender 90 Hard Top Commercial and gives them a contemporary urban makeover, embellishing the old agrarian favourite with decorative flourishes normally found on its more ostentatious Range Rover siblings. Gone are the down-to-earth steel wheels, replaced instead by unique 16-inch Saw Tooth alloys finished in a menacing gloss black. To expunge all remaining vestiges of the countryside from the X-Tech, the Defender's iconic form is finished in Zermatt Silver, with contrasting Santorini Black enhancing the cosmopolitan feel on the roof and wheel arches.

While the X-Tech may seek to cast aside its utilitarian roots in favour of a more metrosexual identity, the presence of a 2.4-litre common rail diesel under the bonnet and its sizeable 360Nm of torque, suggest that this limited edition remains a dependable workhorse at heart - in essence a true, and very desirable, Defender.