The new Defender makes its much-anticipated debut later this year, but that didn’t stop the folks at the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) from putting the iconic SUV through its paces in Dubai. The Land Rover and Red Cross relationship goes back to 1954, when the automaker provided the international humanitarian group with its first mobile dispensary.
Fast-forward 65 years, and 120 Land Rovers have been supplied to the Red Cross (like this over-the-top Land Rover Discovery rescue vehicle), with over 13 million miles traveled across the globe under an average daytime temperature of 50°C or 122°F — the point is, saving lives means no compromises. The Defender prototype seen here hits Dubai’s famous sand dunes and the hairpins of the renowned Jebel Jais highway, which winds its way up the tallest mountain in the UAE, all in an effort to conduct extreme hot-weather testing.
The all-terrain experts from Red Cross spent over 3,000 hours behind the wheel of the 2020 Defender, spanning all seven emirate states covering an impressive 200,000 km or 124,500 miles. The two have signed a new 3-year partnership, and we should all be happy they did. Check out more sweet Defenders here.
