► Our Defender Octa battles Alpine snow
► How does it fare on a family holiday?
► Read month 2
Record snowfall in the Alps? Text messages from ski resorts warning of police checks for winter tyres or snow chains? Time to fire up the Octa! A family trip to France gave the perfect excuse to test out all the car’s capabilities.
The Octa’s boot struggled to accommodate all our bags, so the rearward vision was nil. Bad start. Fortunately, the car has adigital rear-view mirror, so I flipped that on. I still don’t find these as natural to use as a conventional mirror, but better than nothing.
Oddly, the roar from the Goodyears is worse at 50mph than it is at higher speeds, so France’s motorways, with their 80mph limit, weren’t an issue. Despite all the Octa’s high speed off-road focus, it’s a remarkable long-distance on road companion, helped in no small part because you sit so high in it. We settled in for the long drive south, knowing that we’d need a refuel every 250 miles or so.
This wasn’t ideal. We were in convoy with two other families – both in diesel Defenders – and they didn’t really need to stop, other than for food and toilets. With the Octa’s mpg dipping to 18.9, we had to fuel as well, which, because it was the French holidays, meant queuing at petrol pumps. We lost 45 minutes to our pals at each service station.
As the sat-nav clicked down and the road started to climb into a series of switchbacks, it felt good being in the Octa. It has an inner calm to it; a sense of easy capability and of being designed for more than this trip – or any other – can throw at it. The Wranglers are classified as ‘mud and snow’ tyres, but don’t have the Three Peak winter rating so we’d packed snow chains just in case – not cheap with the Octa’s strange sizes.
Not cheap and entirely unnecessary, as it turned out. Not only are the French good at clearing snow, but it felt like some scaremongering from the authorities had occurred, to shock everyone and make sure no one got caught short. In the Octa, we laughed in the face of nature.
Or at least we did until it was time to go home… Two metres of snowfall had completely buried the car. Still, I confidently approached with shovel and extendable brush, brimming with confidence that I’d have it dug out in a jiffy.
It was a disaster. Not only is snow of any nationality an absolute swine to clear, but the Octa proved surprisingly reluctant to free itself. Even with all the snow cleared from directly in front of each tyre and both diff locks engaged, it simply wouldn’t move forward, preferring instead to spin its tyres and slide down the hill, ironically towards another stranded Defender.
What finally freed us was clearing the snow away from where it was packed against the sides of the wheels, at which point the car finally inched forward out of the parking bay. It’s always sobering when you’re humbled by nature.
The story so far
Hottest Defender is proving mighty for doing big miles
+ Aggressive styling; seat comfort; V8 pace; clever chassis
– Road noise from Goodyear tyres; frequent fuel stops
Logbook
Price: £148,045 (£159,670 as tested)
Performance: 4395cc twin-turbo V8, 626bhp, 553lb ft, 4.0sec 0-62mph, 155mph
Efficiency: 21.3mpg (official), 18.9mpg (tested)
Energy cost: 36.7p per mile
Miles this month: 2488
Total miles: 12,592