ive only ever seen a couple defenders offroad, and they werent people i knew, just one guy on a trail and one guy at an offroad park, but both were very close to stock if not stock, and were doing amazingly well. getting up stuff much easier than my friend in his grand cherokee with over 10 grand in mods, and my other friend in his lifted f250 couldnt get up.
i guess it depends on what you plan on doing, 1 ton trucks just arent versitile enough. they kill it for mudding and stuff like that, but when it comes to technical crawling, tight trails, etc... id rather be in a 1000 dollar samurai.
a 1 ton truck may be more "heavy duty" but it will also weight twice the weight of some defender, land cruiser, or g wagen. and have like 3 times the torque. its not necessarily tougher... your not gonna break a defender unless you are doing something extremely hard or stupid. my buddies completely stock fj80 land cruiser dropped about 5 feet onto the front left wheel at an angle and he broke nothing. he even bruised his head from hitting it on the window.
so to the guy asking...
if your looking for a land rover, look for something older than 2000, preferably early 90's or earlier if you can find one in good condition.
an fj80 land cruiser is the best stock offroader ive seen, ive seen stock ones outperform some extremely built cars.
from what ive heard, the 80's g wagens are supposed to be better than fj80's and defenders for pure offroad performance, just looking at them it makes sense, they very reliable, parts arent cheap but not expensive, and they easy to find in extremely good condition.
