These days it's retro chic. For others it remains reality tractor.It's de rigueur to love this iconic off-roader, particularly in the urban fashion warfare that turns a seemingly outdated truck into a cool accessory. A recent trip to London revealed a rash of spotless Defenders scattered around the trendy Primrose Hill area, writes Michael McAleer, Motoring Editor
What the fashionistas love is that the Defender screams old money, "country" owners who are greener-than-green. It's the sheer minimalism that has won over so many - that and its ability to give them a taste of playing the farmer without actually having to stick their arms up a cow's rear end every now and then.
These are the people who'd happily drive a Trabant and wax lyrical about the Citroën 2CV. They wouldn't be seen in anything as uncouth and yuppie as a VW Toureag or Lexus RX300.
Away from the fashion parade, the Defender is dear to a troop of loyal owners who know its worth in tough terrain. They actually work for a living and use it to get them through four feet of foul-smelling muck.
Fashion doesn't come into it and, whatever colour the Defender is bought in, by day two it's under muddy camouflage. These owners wouldn't consider anything else and have remained loyal since the first 1948 model.
The latest model has had only the most cursory facelift, with the introduction of central locking, electric front windows, better heating and ventilation and a revised facia.
Defender is an unabashed mud plugger, in its element crossing ploughed fields and gorse-covered hills.
On the road is a different matter. It's raw and ready, a motoring time warp where the decades fall back until the only thing you know is that its post-1960s, because you've got a regular tape player. Outside the rugged looks are quite timeless - other off-roaders are all stylised curves and fancy décor, but the Defender was drawn with a ruler.
Interior plastics look like they've been remoulded from the dash of a Ford Anglia. The buttons are certainly from that era and the dials - all four of them - tell your speed, fuel level, engine temperature and time.
There's no rev counter, but then you can't miss the engine note from the big 2,495 cc Td5 diesel. It does everything but slap you across the face with the gearstick if you neglect to change gear.
Claimed top speed is 87 mph, but even at 70mph the engine screams to slow down. Appropriately the clock on the dash has no second hand - understandable given that, even if you were to measure the 0-62mph time, you could easily resort to a calendar without being out by much.
The Defender boasts an ingenious security system. In the age of biometrics, Land Rover has given each Defender a unique fingerprint, courtesy of the visible welds around the body. No two welds are the same on any vehicle.
Seated above the roofs of passing motorists, it's hard not to feel a little impregnable in this mass of raw metal. The Defender bounces along on country roads.
However the road is not its home. Jibes about on-road performance are forgotten when you take it into the dirt. It's basic design and lack of high-technology removes whatever reservations you may have about throwing it head-first into the quagmire, confident that even if the cabin floods, you should still make it out the other side. More rugged versions have exhaust pipes over the roof, so there should be no reason not to make that lake crossing.
It bounces over jagged rocks, staggers down virtual drops, clatters against boulders and still keeps going. The most important turning point in your relationship with the Defender is its first scratch or dent - then you begin to use it for what its designed.
The Defender harks back to a time before technology. In its world airbags are party bores and compact discs crop up when you fall off the ladder.
Air-conditioning? Two handles that open vents below the small square windscreen. The wipers seem to have been borrowed from a Morris Minor.
Our test car was the shorter Station Wagon version which can seat six, with the four back-seat passengers facing each other and secured by two point lap-format safety belts. They have to interlock their legs if they are more than five-feet tall.
Though it claims nearly 28mpg, we managed only about 23mpg, admittedly with a lot of hard motorway driving.
But, for all its outdated demeanour, we wouldn't suggest for a minute that it doesn't do its job. It's rough and ready and all the parts do what's required. And it can't be blamed for that.
Criticism of the Defender's lack of extras is reserved only for those who buy such a vehicle suspecting it to offer more. If the surburban slaves of trendiness want to suffer for their style, then so be it.
The Defender has a loyal following among its target audience of off-road fans, a following other car firms can only envy. Given its heritage, this is the vehicle held in highest regard by Land Rover aficionados.
Purely in the line of research, we browsed through the latest issue of Land Rover World, a British magazine for lovers of the off-road. It was sent to us as part of the promotion for the Land Rover World Show.
It's full of adverts for shock absorbers and heavy-duty tyres with names such as "the Grizzly Claw", featuring the sort of deep treads that could lift tarmac.
As if to demonstrate the love affair with these vehicles, nearly every article covers Defenders and their owners, including one about a Cornish owner who sprayed his pride and joy raspberry pink, added sports alloys, electrically-adjusted Recaro seats and low profile Pirelli tyres. It's powered by a 3.9-litre V8 taken from a Discovery and we can only imagine it handles like an elephant and rides like one as well. Each to their own.
When the going gets tough and the empire is under threat, the high-street SUVs seem to take to the car parks. Out rolls the likes of the Land Rover Defender. It's the coolest tractor in town - but a tractor nonetheless.