Brad McCreedy explores the hardest of hard core Land Rovers — the Defender 130 — and in doing so is inspired to take up game ranging, or at the very least farming.

Some things have been around forever, like the sea, mountains, Hugh Hefner and the Land Rover – especially the original series one that morphed into the Defender over the decades. It has become an institution since its debut in 1948. As I’ve always been a Land Rover fan, have owned many, I was sad to learn that the current shape is going to be replaced in 2015.

You know the Defender 130 isn’t a “supermodel” pretending to be the “girl next door” – it has the aerodynamics of, well, a brick to prove it. Of all the Defenders, the 130 must be the most hard-core. Simply put, it is a utility vehicle through and through. It makes you want to go farming or game ranging because this is surely what those big, burly men drive, right?

The major difference between the 90, 110 and 130 is the wheelbase. The 90 has a wheelbase of 93 inches (2 362 mm), the 110 has a wheelbase of 110 inches (2 800 mm) and the 130’s wheelbase is a monstrous 127 inches (3 226 mm).

The 130 is a double cab with a large load box on the back, and my test model was fitted with a canvas canopy. This model comes with real off-road tyres on steel rims, not those all-terrain ones fitted on pretty alloys you find on the pretend 4x4s. With the real off-road ones you can hop a sidewalk or even summit Mount Everest and not have to worry about scratches.

Inside the vehicle, not much has changed from previous models. The dash has been neatened up a bit, but it’s still very basic. It does now come with electric windows in the front, which alleviates those pesky winders annoying your leg.

It’s a pity the unit I got was not fitted with a radio though, as it would have been nice to drown out some of the cabin noise. Since they’ve taken the vents just above the bonnet away, I’m happy to admit, the noise in the cabin has been reduced slightly, but the cabin in general is not a place of peace.

The front seats are moderately comfortable, and the rear seats are moderately uncomfortable (and I’m using the word “moderately” quite loosely here). If you have a bad posture I do believe taking a long trip in the back of this vehicle will correct your problem as the backrest must be at a proper 90 degree angle. The seats are fitted with plastic covers that obviously keep the seats dry, but your posterior does stick to them on hot days.

The air conditioner is adequate, but if you select it to blow through the down/foot setting, you might get frost bite in your knee and suffer from upper heat stroke at the same time. Carpets would have been too luxurious for this vehicle, so they didn’t fit any, but they added rubber mats that you can just hose off if Rufus gets car sick.

The TD4 (2.4 litre and four cylinders) engine with 90 kilowatts has lots of torque (360Nm) and pulls this big, no, massive vehicle along quite confidently. The 0-100km/hour time is rather unimportant as the only robot-to-robot drag race you will win is against my grandma in her wheelchair – and with the Landy’s top speed of 130-odd km/hour, I think she might take you on at the top end.

This is the only Defender currently on sale that has no ABS and airbags, but unless you’re going to play chicken with a bus, I guess you won’t need any of that as you will just drive over everything else.

Having said all of that, let’s look at some of the things this vehicle has going for it. Firstly it has a big load bin, and I can see you loading lots of things like sheep or elephants. Okay, maybe not elephants.

This vehicle has superb off-road capabilities, good approach and departure angles. The long wheelbase does work against it a bit, but it is fitted with diff lock and low range and must be one of the best off-road vehicles out there, if not the best.

Another plus is if you drive a Defender is that all other Defender drivers wave at you. It makes you feel like you belong to some secret society – I even started to master my “royal” wave.

So if the wife needs to cross the Caprivi to drop the kids off at school, this is the vehicle for her. Else I think the 130 is more of a utility vehicle used by the harder core brand of off-roaders.