The Met Office website makes for grim reading these days. A seemingly endless conveyor belt of low-pressure systems since late autumn last year has seen the UK experience one of its wettest winters yet.

While the north has fared slightly better, us folk down here in the south have received 50% more rainfall than the long-term average this winter. As a result, southern England has currently had its seventh wettest winter since records began in 1836.

The irony isn’t lost on me as I hustle a thirsty 4.4-litre twin-turbo V8 along a pleasingly empty A31 in the early hours of a grey midweek morning.

Despite boasting a mild-hybrid system, the lump that proudly sits underneath the swollen bonnet of the Defender Octa returns around 20mpg on a good day.

Eco-warrior this isn’t, but with the forecast warning against yet more torrential downpours and dangerous localised flooding, I wouldn’t want to be in anything else.

Pure muscle

The Octa needs little introduction, as this is arguably the most hardcore Defender to roll out of Gaydon. It made its debut at the 2024 Goodwood Festival of Speed, where it tore up the hill only marginally faster than it had potential customers reaching for the chequebooks.

“It even gets a dedicated Octa Mode – effectively a performance-focused off-road setting – complete with Off-Road Launch and recalibrated ABS for loose surfaces”

An exclusive Edition One was limited to just 1,070 units in 2024, all of which immediately sold out, while the global order books now reveal in excess of 4,500 units. Not bad considering the ‘base’ model starts at £145,000 without any tempting options boxes ticked.

Named after a very expensive, uncut raw diamond, the Octa’s thumping V8 delivers 635hp and up to 750Nm of torque – or 800Nm if you engage Dynamic Launch Mode. Peak torque swells from just 1,800rpm and carries on right into the rev range, which gives the OCTA the sort of relentless shove you’d normally associate with a brawny muscle car.

It’ll crack 0-60mph in 3.8 seconds, yet still carries proper high and low range gearing through its eight-speed automatic transmission.

Surprisingly, the headline act isn’t the V8. It’s the 6D Dynamics suspension system making its Defender debut.
Instead of traditional anti-roll bars, Octa uses hydraulically interlinked, semi-active dampers that effectively control pitch and roll in real time. On tarmac, the body stays improbably flat for something with this much ground clearance.

Off-road, the system decouples to allow serious wheel articulation, letting those 33-inch tyres claw for grip while the cabin remains eerily composed. It rides 28mm higher than a standard Defender and its track is widened by 68mm, giving it the stance of something bred for Baja rather than the Bicester Outlets.

Then there’s the supporting cast: longer and tougher wishbones, revised suspension geometry, 400mm front brake discs with Brembo calipers and the quickest steering ratio ever fitted to a Defender.

It even gets a dedicated Octa Mode – effectively a performance-focused off-road setting – complete with Off-Road Launch and recalibrated ABS for loose surfaces.

To the ends of the earth

The alarm goes off at an ungodly hour and, at this time of year, that means creeping out of the house in pitch blackness. The matte Sargasso Blue paintwork of this particular Octa is covered in a light frost, which only serves to highlight the big 4×4’s steroid-enhanced haunches.

A wider track and flared wheel arches make it look purposeful, without straying into OTT territory, while the chunky off-road tyres and raised ride height ensure a proper climb is required to slip into the deeply cosseting leather sports seats.

The interior ambience is pure Defender, with the white leather colour scheme of this test car adding a healthy dose of Essex chic to something that’s as happy bashing dunes in Dakar as it is popping to Debenhams.

“Named after a very expensive, uncut raw diamond, the Octa’s thumping V8 delivers 635hp and up to 750Nm of torque – or 800Nm if you engage Dynamic Launch Mode”

This route is well-trodden and meandering along the south coast before the sun rises was a regular occurrence when the urge to surf rose above everything else. A growing family and modern living has put the brakes on that.

But it’s still worth the trip to experience the otherworldly emptiness of the Bodmin Moors and their surrounding farmlands, byways and green lanes.

The weather is disgusting and the big Defender’s progress is slowed by a number of seemingly impassable flooded roads.

Thankfully, Octa wades deeper than any production Defender before it, with a dedicated wading mode and raised air intakes to allow the engine to breathe.

What proves a genuine road block for anything other than farm machinery is a piece of cake for this brute. It positively ploughs through the wet stuff and emerges out of the other side ready to transform back into a B-road barbarian.

The sheer scale of engineering validation behind it is a story in itself. This wasn’t a case of slotting in a bigger engine and hoping the rest would cope.

JLR’s Special Vehicle Operations team effectively tore up the rulebook, subjecting Octa to more than 13,000 additional tests on top of the standard Defender programme. That meant high-speed off-road durability work, sustained high-load on-road punishment and the sort of extreme environment validation usually reserved for low-volume halo cars or rally raiders.

Battling Bodmin

After collecting long-term Flat-Out snapper Lewis Harrison-Pinder, we point the Octa towards the deepest depths of Bodmin in search of overflowing fords and rutted routes.

It doesn’t take long to find them, as recent weather has made many of these tiny country routes perilous for the typical SUV or crossover. It’s not the case for Octa, which positively radiates a sort of Special Forces mentality that simply wants to take on everything.

Several Defender terrain modes are reserved for things like sand, mud and ruts, although an automatic profile does a good enough job of sensing the ground beneath. We barely need to use wading mode to get through some of the deepest floods, such is the raised ride height, while traction is rarely troubled, even in deep mud.

The bandwidth here is deeply impressive, as only hours ago, we were comfortably cruising along empty motorways without so much as a whiff of road roar disturbing the punchy Meridian sound system. Now, we’re pummelling puddles and rock-crawling without a worry in the world.

“The weather is disgusting and the big Defender’s progress is slowed by a number of seemingly impassable flooded roads”

Octa operates in territory no Defender has explored before. Pushing 635hp through a chassis designed to climb mountains is one thing; doing it repeatedly, at speed, in heat, sand, mud and on broken tarmac is another.

The widened track, taller ride height and 33-inch tyres required revised suspension geometry and tougher hardware throughout – longer, stronger wishbones, reworked mounting points and uprated bushings engineered to take sustained impacts. It quickly becomes apparent that Bodmin isn’t going to bother Octa in the slightest.

All the car you ever need

Despite weighing in at 2.5-tonnes and costing a staggering £145,000, it is very difficult not to fall in love with Defender Octa. You could argue it is over-engineered, too in-your-face, obnoxiously large… but all of those things are easily forgiven.

Plenty of anti-Defender sentiment is also likely to surface — naysayers reminding everyone about electrical gremlins ands build quality issues. But those can be waved away.

Every part of Octa feels deliberate and almost obsessively pored over. Those 400mm front discs and Brembo calipers aren’t there for pub bragging rights; they’re built to stop over 2.5 tonnes of high-riding performance SUV again and again.

And then there’s the calibration work. Octa Mode, Off-Road Launch and the bespoke ABS tuning for loose surfaces aren’t gimmicks; they’re the product of countless hours refining how the electronics, driveline and 6D Dynamics suspension talk to each other.

The system can automatically detect surfaces and adapt accordingly, but making that feel intuitive rather than intrusive takes serious fine-tuning. It’s also amazing that Octa can be happily drifting on Tarmac one minute and then delicately descending a mountain pass the next.

Forget the perfect two or three-car garage, there’s only one name that needs to be at the top of the lottery shopping list and it’s a diamond.