New Land Rover Defender: front end detailed in new shots

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The new shots show Prince Harry speaking to an Invictus Games athlete beside the Defender - Land Rover sponsors the event for wounded, injured and sick servicemen. But they also show the front end design of the car behind significantly less camouflage than previous shots. 

Engineers have completed 1.2 million kilometres (750,000 miles) putting the rugged 4x4 through its paces in some of the world's most inhospitable environments.

Land Rover has also given a Defender prototype to the Tusk Trust, a non-profit elephant protection organisation, which will be used to traverse a 14,000 hectare reserve in Kenya carrying supplies and towing heavy loads as part of a demanding real-world trial. The firm announced its donation 71 years to the day that the original Defender was launched at the 1948 Amsterdam Motor Show.

 the new Defender will be built alongside the Discovery at Jaguar Land Rover's new £1 billion manufacturing plant in Slovakia. That could prove somewhat controversial, given the Defender's status as a proudly British machine, although Land Rover has noted that all the design and development work was undertaken at its Gaydon base.

The Defender has been sighted testing numerous times in recent months, including at the Nurburgring, where engineers were fine-tuning the chassis and brake setup to suit a variety of conditions. 

Due to go into production early in 2020, the rugged 4x4 was also previously spotted testing in North America. Engineers were said to be subjecting the Toyota Land Cruiser rival to "rigorous test extremes", including temperatures as low as minus 40deg Celcius and as high as 48 deg, as well as at altitudes up to 13,000ft. 

The first official 'spyshots' of the five-door '110' variant were followed last year by shots of the short-wheelbase three-door '90' model testing in disguise. An even longer-wheelbase '130' version is rumoured, too.  

A prototype has also been seen displaying a rear-mounted spare wheel. It's not clear yet if that's a feature that will make production, but it's likely given the car's off-road focus and the styling link to the old model.