Here’s Your First Look At Land Rover’s Dakar Defender OCTA

In less than a year’s time, Land Rover will launch a rare factory motorsport programme as it sets out to tackle the World Rally Raid Championship (W2RC), and its Dakar Rally flagship event, with a near-stock version of the mighty new Defender OCTA. That very car, dubbed the Defender Dakar D7X-R, has been out having fun – sorry, doing some rigorous testing – in the sand dunes of Morocco, and this is our first look at it.

From next year, Defender – now a sub-brand of its own – is going to be launching a three-car effort in the ‘Stock’ class which, as its name suggests, is for cars that are pretty much showroom-ready. Formerly known as T2, the only major modifications made to cars in this class are the basic safety features required by the FIA – things like a roll cage and fire suppression system.

The idea is that, rather than building a bespoke rally raid prototype that serves more to get eyes on the brand than anything else, entering a car that people can actually buy serves to prove how capable it is. Currently, Toyota enters the class with a pair of Land Cruisers in addition to its purpose-built Hiluxes that compete in the top category - one of which won overall in 2025.

The OCTA, based on the four-door, mid-length Defender 110, borrows BMW’s 4.4-litre twin-turbo V8, making 626bhp and 553lb ft of torque. Those numbers will most likely carry over into the racing version. Higher and wider than any other Defender, its party piece is its ‘6D Dynamics’ suspension which hydraulically connects all four corners of the car to keep the OCTA’s body level as it hammers across the desert floor.

Land Rover’s not messing about with its programme, either. Two cars will contest the full championship for an initial three years, beginning in 2026. One will be driven by Frenchman Stéphane Peterhansel, a Dakar veteran who’s won the gruelling event some 14 times on both two and four wheels (not at the same time, obviously).

Helming the second car, meanwhile, will be Rokas Baciuška, a 25-year-old talent from Lithuania who already has the 2022 T4 class championship in the W2RC to his name. A third car will be brought in for the Dakar Rally in January, although we don’t yet know who’ll be driving it.

Events like the Dakar should prove a gruelling test for the Defender, but having sampled the roadgoing OCTA in all its physics-defying hilarity earlier this year, we’re frankly in little doubt that it’s up to the challenge.