GENEVA MOTOR SHOW: Kahn Design's ultimate Defender

Land Rover’s Defender might have been long since surpassed in Australia by the Toyota LandCruiser – and, for the ADF, the Merecedes-Benz G-Class -- but it’s still a favourite in Europe.

Its narrow body has been the key to its popularity, making it easy to drive and park in ancient villages and towns from Scotland to Italy and from Portugal to Poland.

It’s also been fettled for extra fun before, with everybody from Bowler to Land Rover itself giving the Defender V8 horns.

And now it’s Kahn Design’s turn. The British tuning house, which specialises in turning Land Rover and Range Rover donor cars into far more expensive rarities, has delivered the Flying Huntsman 105 Longnose.

It’s not the most extreme Defender ever (that’s probably one of the mid-engined Paris-Dakar monsters from over at the Bowler stable), but it is one of the most expensive.

The full-time 6X6 scores more than just an extra axle. It also does away with the four-cylinder turbo-diesel and, to make the GM LS3 V8 fit, Khan's cut and shut the front-end.

It has stuffed another 400mm of front subframe in between the firewall and the front wheels to allow the 6.2-litre V8, which will deliver up to 335kW of power, space to do its thing.

There is also a six-speed automatic transmission attached to it, with mechanically locking differentials on all three axles, and retains a low- and high-range transfer case, so hard-core off-roading should still be on the agenda.

That last part, of course, depends on your willingness to risk something that starts with a standard Land Rover Defender wagon’s asking price and, in the UK, almost quintuples it. Kahn Design is suggesting £150,000 ($A290,000) will be about the right number to get into a Flying Huntsman 105 Longnose.

Fortunately, it’s not just about getting out the gas axe, slicing through the front-end and welding in a couple of new beams, even though it’s 150mm wider and 1200mm longer than the stock Defender 110.

Like all the Kahn Design variants on the Defender theme, it gets a wider track at both ends and the wider, bolt-on wheel blisters that go with it.

It also has stronger brakes and sportier suspension to cope with the extra performance of the V8 and Kahn Design boss, Afzal Kahn, insists there has already been a lot of interest from the UK, the Middle East and even Australia and Africa.

“We know we are not the first to do a 6X6 Defender. There was the Perentie used by your own Australian Army for years,” he said.

“The Perentie gave some guidance for this and showed it could be done successfully. We’ve showed how it could be done faster and better, with a focus on luxury, exclusivity and speed.”

In a nice piece of full-circling, the Australian Army’s Perentie was phased out in 2013; replaced by the 6X6 version of the Mercedes-Benz G-Wagen that itself gave the basis for another extreme, exclusive and expensive machine, the G 63 AMG 6X6.

“The Defender is probably the most iconic and well-loved British vehicle in existence, even more so than the Mini, I believe,” he said in Geneva.

“The fact that Land Rover is retiring it is an absolute tragedy. It’s one of my top three all-time favourite vehicles.”

He probably would say that, given his company sells three different versions of Defender-based models.