New Land Rover Defender OCTA Black 2026 review: family-friendly villainy

Verdict

The Defender OCTA Black looks like a Bond villain’s daily driver, but it has such a broad range of ability that it’s a real pleasure to drive. It’s just as capable doing the school run as it is when cruising at the national limit, yet it’s also capable of negotiating a mountain path or even a track day. It’s a real gem of a performance SUV, although we’d stick with all-season tyres to get the most from the outstanding chassis.

Creating the ultimate performance SUV is a tough task. The inherent nature of an off-roader, with an upright body, high centre of gravity and plenty of weight, means it’s not a natural for a performance makeover. But that hasn’t stopped plenty of companies trying, and you’re spoiled for choice in terms of fast 4x4s, especially at the premium end of the market.

For the Land Rover Defender, it wasn’t simply enough to create a rapid SUV, it had to have off-road ability, too, so it came up with the OCTA. For 2026, Land Rover has introduced the OCTA Black, a new limited-run variant that arrives as part of the Defender’s model year update. Changes when compared with the previous year include more use of Defender badges, so now the only Land Rover logo is on the grille, while design tweaks include revised headlight housings, plus flush-fitting dark-tinted tail-lights. Inside, there’s a larger 13.1-inch touchscreen for ease of use, while new paint options have been added to the palette.

Used - available now

2024 Land Rover

Defender

49,299 milesAutomaticDiesel3.0L

Cash £48,990

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2024 Land Rover

Defender

15,000 milesAutomaticDiesel3.0L

Cash £72,995

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2024 Land Rover

Defender

32,000 milesAutomaticDiesel3.0L

Cash £58,490

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2024 Land Rover

Defender

57,000 milesAutomaticDiesel3.0L

Cash £57,495

View Defender

For the OCTA, the colour options are only available with the standard model, because the OCTA Black driven here comes exclusively in Narvik Black, and the only change you can make to the body colour is to add a matt wrap for £4,500 extra. There’s no contrast roof option, just a black top, while the exterior trim, interior upholstery and suede headlining, brake calipers and trim finishers inside and out are all finished in black, too. While the standard OCTA has 22-inch alloys as standard, it’s the off-road-biased 20-inch wheels that are fitted here (the 22s are a £205 option), and they are finished in, you guessed it, black, but with a diamond-turned rim with a dark-satin finish.

When ordering an OCTA, you can specify all-season or all-terrain tyres, but going for the latter reduces the car’s top speed from 155mph to 130mph, not that this should be a big deal in everyday driving. Land Rover offers an even more off-road focused set of Goodyear all-terrain tyres for an extra £265, which reduces the car’s top speed to 99mph. However, with the way that the OCTA performs, you could be forgiven that it’s just as capable of this V-Max on a gravel track as it is on black tarmac.

While there are plenty of performance SUVs that are rapid in a straight line, not many have the kind of all-round ability that the Defender OCTA can deliver. It comes with the same ‘6D Dynamics’ adaptive air-suspension system that’s fitted to the Range Rover Sport SV, and this gives the car a broad spread of ability, so it’s equally happy cruising at the national limit, negotiating a rocky forest track or tackling a series of fast A and B-roads. 

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Land Rover’s Terrain Response system allows you to pick the correct set-up for the surface with the twist of a rotary dial on the centre console, and off you go. The BMW-sourced 4.4-litre twin-turbo V8 sounds a little muted, especially when compared with the stonking V8 found in the Bentley Bentayga Speed, but there are no quibbles about the Defender’s performance. 

Select OCTA mode via the big button on the steering wheel, and the car’s suspension tightens up, the steering sharpens, throttle response is boosted, and the Defender accelerates, brakes and handles like a car half its size, simply shrugging off its 2.5-tonne kerbweight with ease. We’d stick with all-season tyres if we were buying an OCTA ourselves, because we found that the all-terrain tyres on our car reached their limit of grip well before the chassis did, and you’re unlikely to feel as if you’re losing much in terms of off-road ability.

The only other thing that really holds the OCTA back as the ultimate performance SUV is its sheer size. While the handling makes the car feel as if it shrinks around you, at two-metres wide, it’s a big lump to hustle along tight British B-roads.