Land Rover Defender vs Toyota Tundra

What's the difference?

This feels wrong to say this, but it’s so refreshing not to be driving an electric vehicle. There I said it.

After testing so many EVs lately reviewing a car that has an actual engine is a nice change. And this car definitely has an internal combustion engine - it's the Land Rover Defender Octa Black with a twin-turbo petrol V8.

The Defender Octa is the ultimate form of the 110 Defender. It’s wilder looking, more powerful and more capable, while the Black edition adds darkened elements inside and out for even more visual appeal.

While the Defender Octa Black is special, it’s not alone in a world of high-performance luxury SUVs and its head-to-head rival would be Mercedes-AMG’s G63.

I had the Defender Octa Black for a week and while I didn’t take this beast off-road where it is superbly capable, I put it to the test on some challenging tarmac as well as some challenging real-world family duties.  

The Toyota Tundra, made in America for Americans, was launched in 1999 and since then Toyota Australia has fielded a steady stream of enquiries from car buyers and automotive media about the possibility of its full-size US pickup being available in local showrooms.

Production of RHD Tundras at Toyota’s San Antonio plant in Texas never stacked up as a viable business case for Toyota until 2015, when the Walkinshaw Automotive Group (WAG) commenced OEM-certified right-hand-drive remanufacturing of Ram pick-up trucks (and later Chevrolet Silverados) in Melbourne.

This development finally opened the door to an ‘Australianised’ version of the Tundra, which went on sale late last year after a six-year joint development program with WAG that was a world-first for Toyota.

The Tundra’s local two-model range comprises the entry-level Limited and the new top-shelf Platinum grades, with more power and torque than local ‘1500 class’ US pickup rivals. So, we recently put the fresher Premium model to work for a week, to see how it measures up from a tradie’s perspective.