Land Rover Defender 110 | Can you sleep in it?

Land Rover Defender 110 | Can you sleep in it?

Video Transcript

CHRISTOPHER MCGRAW: Here is a Land Rover Defender 110. It costs $69,000, has a top speed of 149 miles per hour, ground clearance of up to 11 and 1/2 inches, and a wading depth of nearly three feet, making it an incredible vehicle to take off road. But, can you sleep in it?

So first things first, let's get into the back. First thing I noticed, we got some storage in the door, which is nice. Hard plastic on the bottom here. There's actually storage underneath, because our spare, of course, is on the back.

But, in order to sleep in the back, unless you are 3 feet tall, we're going to have to set down the seats. The big question is, do they lie flat? So there's a button on each headrest.

Press that, headrest goes down. Lie them flat. Oh, they don't lie flat, or do they?

Put it back up, you'll notice there's a loop here. Pull that loop, the cushion goes forward, which allows the seat to lie flat. We do the same thing on this side, boom, flat surface.

Now that the seats are lying flat, let's do some measurements. So first things first, we're going to put the measuring tape all the way up to where those cushions are, and then all the way back to the door here. Door closes at right about 64 inches, that's only 5-foot-4. I'm 5-foot-7.

Most of humanity is taller than that, so it's not super great. If you don't mind dangling your feet over, however, we got this driver's seat all the way pushed forward. That gives you almost 6 and 1/2 feet of room.

So that is much preferred. Width wise, I'm going to measure it from the narrowest part, we're at 45 inches. And then up further towards the doors, you're going to have a lot more space than that.

Diagonally, if you're sleeping by yourself back here, you could definitely lay diagonally and you're at right about 76 inches. So that's 6-foot-4, and that's without putting your feet over onto these cushions. Finally, height wise, we'll measure the shortest part.

In the middle we're at 37 inches. Where it comes down a little bit, we're at 36. So 3 feet is not bad. You could sit up easily.

I mean, at least I can, and not hit your head on the ceiling. All right, now let's get a sleeping bag in here and actually lay down. All right, this is my sleeping pad.

It is a Therm-a-Rest Z-Rest. I think I bought this for $10. Kind of folds out like an accordion, which I like a lot better than the ones that roll up. Let me hop in.

Before hopping in, take off your shoes. It'll keep everything cleaner. So this actually will rest over these cushions here.

And then we'll throw this sleeping bag. This sleeping bag is going to be overkill for today. I think it went down to 38 degrees last night. This is an 19 degree rated sleeping bag, so it's actually not too bad.

And we'll close the door. Now, one big downside of the Defender 110 is that you cannot open this rear door from the inside. So when you wake up in the morning, you'll have to go out one of the two side doors, which isn't ideal.

I like when I'm camping in the morning, the air inside your tent or inside a car, especially can get kind of stale. And there's just something about throwing that door open in the morning, letting all that cold air rush in, the smell of the pine trees, the views of the mountains, the sounds of the birds. I love that. So, Land Rover, if you're watching, please just make that small little change so we can sleep in the back more enjoyably.

That being said, this vehicle wasn't designed to sleep in, so I get it. So I'm going to try two different ways of sleeping. First, my head up towards the front of the vehicle, just because we have a little bit more space. I like that.

It gets a bit narrow back here, but we'll see how these cushions fare up here. Put my feet pretty much against the back door and, man, my head hits these cushions kind of almost perfectly. It's almost like a nice little pillow, especially with this sleeping pad.

If you have a better sleeping pad, like an inflatable one, it'll feel even better. Yeah, I'm digging it. I think that this length is perfect for me at 5'7". If you're taller, I think you might want to flip it and put your head towards the back, so let's do that.

Yeah, letting your feet hang off the end gives you a ton more room, especially when you push the front seats up more. I'm not a huge fan of laying like this with my feet up. It kind of does make it feel like all the blood's rushing to my head. But the Defender has something great in the back, thanks to its air suspension.

It'll actually lower and raise the rear of the vehicle. We have bottoms back here, you just press it to lower and raise with the air suspension. I like that a lot because A, lot of campsites are not level, and B, if you're sleeping like I am with my feet up, I can then compensate for it and raise the rear so that I'm still laying level.

Another the nice thing up here is we have an area for you to charge your phone in the back of both seats. There's another two USB-C Chargers down here as well as two 12-volt cigarette lighters, and another cigarette lighter in the back. Let's hop around the back and talk about some of the other storage options.

So in addition to the storage in the back of the door here, we have this elastic mesh netting. Got another place to store a Nalgene. This is a 48 ounce Nalgene. It works, doesn't fit perfectly.

Turnover here, we have a normal-sized Nalgene and that does fit perfectly. Here are those two buttons that I was talking about for you to raise and lower the back. And we have some hooks here and up here. There's a spot as well where you can possibly hang stuff.

There are 15 windows in the Defender 110 and only 1 of them has a shade. So if it's hot out, if it's bright out, you're going to want to build your own customized shades for those. You can find tutorials all over YouTube.

Super easy to do. I do like that there are that many windows in this vehicle, because it does make it feel nice and airy, whether you're driving in it or you're sleeping in it. Plus, if you're out somewhere where privacy isn't really an issue, kind of in the middle of nowhere, it's nice to be able to look out the sunroof up at the stars.

One more bonus is up front. So normal center console, but in here there is the option to have a fridge, which I love. It holds one, two, some candy, three, four, five, six cans. Now, I would definitely if I was going on a camping trip bring along a cooler, but for a long road trip, it's nice that you can keep your beverages cold and it's something that not a lot of vehicles these days have.

Overall, the Defender 110 is pretty great to sleep in. The two knocks against it are the length. If you're taller, it's going to be a bit cramped. And the fact that you can't open the rear door from the inside. And for those reasons, I'm going to give it 4 out of 5 Z's.

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