In defence of the Defender

Most people will tell you Born Free when you ask them which is the first film you’ll associate the Land Rover Defender with, and they’d be wrong. Brand Land Rover did play a crucial role in the movie starring Virginia McKenna as Joy Adamson and Bill Travers as George Adamson, the couple that saved Elsa the lioness. In fact my first memory of a Landie is that particular film. Yet, you’d be inaccurate to associate that Land Rover with the Defender. The thing is, the film was made in 1966 and the name Defender did not make its appearance until the 1990s. My first memory of the Defender on celluloid would have to be Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, starring the gorgeous Angelina Jolie. Hot is the only word that comes to the mind when I think of Croft (Jolie) manoeuvring the black Defender through the jungles of South East Asia. There was something undeniably glamorous about the boxy shape with the round headlamps.  The Landie that Daniel Craig will pilot in No Time to Die, his last outing as 007, is a completely different one. A generation ahead of the black Defender of the yesteryears. Svelte, yet super capable, the new Landie has truly