Bowler Motorsport Land Rover Defender Challenge first drive

A Land Rover Defender turned into an MSA-passable production-spec rally car. It’s been developed and built by Bowler Motorsport – the same people who brought us the incredible EXR S – with input and sponsorship from Land Rover itself. And while it isn’t primarily intended as a road car, it is road-legal.

The Defender Challenge car offers a direct route into international motorsport for people who consider tarmac circuit racing – the national rally championship, even – a bit dull and unadventurous. Once you’ve bought your £60,000 Defender competition car, you can enter a series of seven UK rallies held throughout the 2014 season organised by Bowler, as a feeder series into proper, full-blown, desert-yomping international rally raids like the Dakar.

Bowler will provide as much or as little support as you want, and help you along the way not only to getting the relevant licence stamps for international competition, but actually putting your rally-prepped Landie on the Dakar start line in South America. Assuming you have the budget and the commitment to make it that far.

Surprisingly standard for a race-prepped rally car. Bowler starts with a normal Defender 90 Hard Top. Inside the cabin go bucket seats, six-point harnesses, fire extinguishers, a full rollcage and some timing equipment.

The oversized airbag steering wheel gets swapped for a smaller three-spoke competition number in Alcantara suede, and the gear lever is replaced for a shorter one. You get special sill protectors, lighter door casings and sliding Perspex windows. Otherwise, well enough is left alone.

Under the bonnet, Bowler fits a new ECU to the car’s Transit-derived 2.2-litre turbodiesel engine, increasing peak power to 170bhp and peak torque to 332lb ft. Downstream of the engine, customers can opt for a mechanical limited slip differential for the rear axle. But that’s it. In all other respects, the Defender powertrain is entirely unaltered, right down to the individual gear ratios.

The car’s rolling chassis has the biggest overhaul. Heavy-duty Bilstein shocks are fitted, as well as stiffer springs and anti-roll bars, and lightweight 18-inch alloys are adopted shod with Kumho rally-raid tyres. 

Bowler leaves Land Rover’s standard suspension bushes on the car, but they effectively become a service item to be changed once a season. That gives you an idea of how hard a life these cars will have. On a standard Defender, those bushes last the typical 15-year lifespan of the vehicle.

Almost all the weight the car sheds as a result of the subtractions of fittings from the cabin is put back into it with the roll cage, so a finished Defender Challenge car weighs almost exactly what a standard Defender 90 Hard Top weighs: roughly 1750kg. 

The rollcage adds complication to your entry routine, but nothing too terrible. Once you’re through the bars the bucket seats are quite wide-hipped and comfortable, but supportive enough to keep you riveted securely in place during the inevitable rollercoaster ride to come. 

The classic upright Defender driving position isn’t the perfect one for the heat of competition. The smaller steering wheel helps to solve the leverage problem Defender drivers have been suffering since time immemorial: it makes more room for your right elbow. The steering column could do with more rake adjustment. Equally, it could do with being in line with the middle of the driver’s seat. The pedals would be easier to operate if they were less upright-of-action, and the footwells were a bit deeper.