It's perfectly possible to be happy with a Defender as your main car. I got mine last year and have done nearly 15,000 miles in it by now. We went for a little jaunt to the south coast on Saturday and covered over 500 miles, with stops for coffee, picnic and to admire the view and it wasn't uncomfortable at all. Being stuck in traffic is a bore but at least you can see over the other cars and over the hedge. For this sort of thing I just leave it in 2nd and it's fine from about 0-20mph if you're in a queue of traffic. So there's not that much gear changing.
 
I am not familiar with the model you are asking about(South Africa). My advice is that you will either love a Defender or hate it. I had a 1998 Defender 110 Tdi Hardtop, maintained it myself and put 356 000km on it. Sold it and had a Toyota 3l KZ-TE double cab. Missed the Defender in a big way and bought a TD5 which I sold after 191 000km. I find the driver position comfortable but some of the Defender models have a very stiff clutch pedal which after a days continuous gear changes can be a problem. I have had numerous small problems that I managed to solve myself. My advice is that you should not buy a Defender if you are not prepared or enjoy working on vehicles yourself. I have just bought a 1996 Defender 90 Tdi with lots of challenges, but have already bonded with the vehicle. My wife does not like Defenders!
 
02 TD5 90 drive it everyday + lanes and p&ps. Theres a few bits you can do to improve drivabillity and a few bits of sound proofing all comes together happily
 
N REG,145,000 miles(5k covered by me)110 hardtop use it as a van everyday,love it,its comfortable,goes quite well will pull 83 mph flat out,and returns 35 mpg
 
As part of our trip on Saturday, we did 200 motorway miles at motorway speed, starting with a brim full tank and then stopped to refuel and succeeded in putting £47 worth in to refill it, or around 34 litres. So that's a fraction under 24p a mile, pushing it quite hard. Your mileage may vary. But you get there in style, in a Land Rover.
 
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Before buying one, why not go for a test drive with your family, and make sure you go for a blast on the motorway to see what the comfort and noise levels are like at speed.
If you know anyone who owns a late model Defender then all the better as you can go for a very thorough test drive.
 
If your looking for speed (i did skim read so i may of misread something) theres a reason why defenders are limited at the top end, around the 100mph the standard tyres and offroad biased tend to explode/rip them selves apart so I hear
 
Sorry thought you where on about standard Fenders. Twisted/Alive are not limited.

Oddly though the Pumas are limited.

Anyway at the end of the day you do not need top end speed in a Fender, its never going on a track and the limits 70 here.

However shed loads of acceleration is nice.
 
Yes above 60 your in a 2 tonne steel box travelling very fast with no abs and not the best brakes! Lol
 
Wouldnt be so bad for you, I suspect the defender would end up wearing the lesser cars before coming to a stop,

On a serious note, I need new speakers before going on a motorway run, think i went deaf for a few hours
 
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