Land Rover Defender 130 Morphs Into the Right Kind of Pickup Truck, a Dune Basher

Back in spring, the new-age-posh L663 Land Rover Defender was across the news for many good reasons. Then, afterward, silence reigned. Well, that kind of treatment must stop, at least virtually

For example, in May, our always eager spy photographer partners captured a 2023 or 2024 Land Rover Defender looking all SVR when clad in camouflage and quite happy to make our acquaintance, as it lifted a wheel on the Nürburgring Nordschleife! But then, Land Rover surprised us a little bit and chose to first unveil the 2023 Defender 130 with seating for eight.

Even though it had no V8 engine option, it was still capable of taking the owner and seven of its close ones on all sorts of adventures – from rock climbing to mall crawling. Alas, silence followed afterward, which is all too dreadful, save for the occasional marketing gimmick. For example, such as the time when the Defender was said to become the moving heart of the Women’s Rugby World Cup in New Zealand (October 8 through November 12).

Anyway, luckily for Land Rover Defender fans, the virtual automotive artists are relentless. So, here is the pixel master tucked behind Larson Design (aka lars_o_saeltzer on social media), who brought to life (for AutoExpress) his CGI vision of how Land Rover will make a Defender 130 useful and then decided that we should all enjoy it from the comfort of his social media reel. Not bad, frankly.

This is simply because the 2023 Land Rover Defender 130 dropped the family pretense and morphed into a veritable workhorse by way of a pickup truck transformation. And it is one complete with differently-colored tarps, with traditional white ‘steelies’ or ritzy, modern alloys, as well as the cool white top that everyone from the off-road world seems to love so much. So, does it get a CGI hall pass, or not?