Defender Rally has unveiled the all-new Defender Dakar D7X-R, the team’s official entry for the 2026 World Rally-Raid Championship ahead of its competitive debut at the Dakar Rally in January – the world’s most extreme rally-raid.
Three crews - Stéphane Peterhansel and Mika Metge; Rokas Baciuška and Oriol Vidal; and Sara Price with Sean Berriman will endure more than 80 hours of competitive driving over two weeks and around 5,000km of timed stages.
Each Defender Dakar D7X-R is built on the assembly line at Defender’s state-of-the-art production manufacturing facility in Nitra, Slovakia, adhering to regulations which mandate that the bodyshell of the competition car must not be modified from its production origins.
The FIA regulations for the new Stock category, launched for 2026, stipulate what must not be changed from the production vehicle, as well as what and how modifications can be made. The stock category is attracting interest from many auto manufacturers keen to showcase the offroad abilities of their products.
The Defender Dakar D7X-R adopts the same robust D7x body architecture, transmission and driveline layout as the Defender OCTA, the most capable production Defender ever made. It uses the mid-size Defender 90 as its base.
The D7X-R will be powered by the OCTA’s 4.4-litre twin-turbo V8 engine - another element that cannot be modified - and will run on an advanced sustainable fuel, as defined and compliant with FIA regulations.
