Land Rover Defender vs Jeep Wrangler: Performance Compared

The Land Rover Defender and Jeep Wrangler are two boxy SUVs that excel off the road. Their impressive off-road hardware means they are well prepared to tackle even the apocalypse. But let’s admit that most of the owners drive on tarmac due to expensive spares, lest anything go wrong in their off-roading adventure. 

This got us cracking with an exciting idea to find out how their on-road performance would be when we would wring their engines to their full potential. We found an empty piece of road and did just that.

But before we head into the details, let’s compare their specifications:

Both models come with a 2-litre turbo-petrol engine developing the same amount of torque. That said, the Land Rover’s unit has a 29PS advantage on paper. But does that translate to a realistic performance gain on the road? Here’s what the numbers say: 

It’s quite surprising that the slightly less powerful Jeep Wrangler managed to gain an edge over the Defender in the 0-100kmph run by 1.32 seconds. Even during roll-on acceleration, the Jeep was around 1.5 seconds faster than the Land Rover. 

We weren’t able to compare both SUVs for their fuel efficiency. But since they are high-output engines, they were returning around 5 to 7kmpl during their brief time with us.

Ok, so you want to know our verdict. Clearly, the Wrangler is the faster car here in this test. That said, we were having incredible fun with both the SUVs, exploring untouched parts of Maharashtra after this quick performance test. To see how they perform off the beaten track, stay tuned to our YouTube channel where our detailed comparo video will be going live soon.