Report: Land Rover Considering More Oomph for Defender

A V8 Defender 90 would be my guilty pleasure. JLR need a HEMI equivalent because I might do pee pee in my pants at that thought

If you want a Land Rover with a BMW V8 in it, then the 2005-2009 LR3 is what you're after. You'll get all the counterintuitive engineering and indifferent build quality of the newer model, long-since depreciated.

I think everyone is half-right, here. Jaguar and Land Rover may have been *considering* the use of BMW V8s to introduce as early as this year. As I pointed out elsewhere, they briefly used a BMW V8 in the earliest run of the third-generation Range Rover, as that generation was developed when BMW owned Land Rover and used BMW engineering. Since 2005/2006, Land Rover has been using the Jaguar AJV8 series, introduced sometime around 1998 and developed while Jaguar was under Ford. The latest iteration of the AJV8 is a supercharged 5.0-liter, most recognizable in the Range Rover and Range Rover Sport Supercharged/Autobiography/SVR variants. There was also a naturally-aspirated version of the 5.0-liter, but it didn't survive past MY2013. Despite the fact that Jaguar and Land Rover haven't been under Ford in over ten years, Ford has been building the AJV8 under contract at its Bridgend, UK engine plant. However, Ford shut the plant shut down a couple of months ago. Jaguar/Land Rover had ample notice that this would occur, and so ordered a surplus of the engines, while the company figured out what to do. This is when they must have considered discontinuing it altogether, and simply using BMW engines. However, the decision was made that Jaguar/Land Rover will manufacture the engine itself from now on, in its Wolverhampton facility. The tooling for that will be transferred from the shuttered Ford facility. There was also an AJV6, which was a V6 done on the cheap. It used the same block as the V8, but with two cylinders blanked, smaller bores, and balancing shafts, since 90-degree V6s are inherently unbalanced. You may know this engine as the 3.0-liter supercharged V6, and it was more or less Jaguar/Land Rover's volume engine between about 2013 and 2019. It is unclear whether Ford had been manufacturing that engine as well--since it was a derivative of the AJV8--but I would guess that they had. Nevertheless, it's a moot point, because that engine was discontinued in favor of the 3.0-liter Ingenium MHEV I6 that is now the premium engine on the Defender. When the EU7 emissions roll out in five years or so, they may finally phase out the Jaguar AJV8. Which will be sad, because I think it's the very last British V8, now that the 6.75-liter Bentley/Rolls-Royce V8 has ended production with the discontinuation of the Mulsanne.

JLR don’t sell enough V8’s to justify developing their own engine. They would most likely use the Ford AJV8 they’ve just bought the tooling for. They plan to keep that going for 3 to 5 years at which point I understand they might move to a BMW engine. I suspect BMW will give them a good deal as the market for even their V8 is becoming limited. It’s a real problem for European car makers now.