@EllisDrives
IF you were to picture a modern-day rally car, it would probably be a feral, unhinged version of some modest family hatchback, such as the Ford Fiesta or Toyota Yaris – something small and nimble, perfectly suited to dancing around the hills above Monte Carlo or deep in a Scandinavian forest. The exact opposite, then, of a towering two-tonne-plus Land Rover Defender.
The team at Bowler clearly have much more active imaginations than the rest of us, and have chiselled the highly capable and very fashionable roadgoing Defender into a competition-worthy rallying weapon. And they’ve done so using the lowest-spec Defender 90 in the range, with the minimal amount of modifications and bespoke parts necessary.
Of course, Bowler has all the engineering skill and know-how to pull this off. The British firm has nearly 40 years’ experience of turning Land Rovers into Rally Raid racers, and was bought by Jaguar Land Rover in 2019 to become part of its Special Vehicle Operations division.
The standard Defender isn’t fragile, but Bowler has beefed it up by adding underbody protection, made from 6mm-thick
