Ready for a reality check? The American Society of Civil Engineers has graded the state of American road infrastructure a solid D, which is barely a grade at all. It’s a participation trophy for asphalt. We are, officially, failing at pavement, but you knew this already. You’ve no doubt had the pleasure of inching across a cratered freeway in your car, feeling the suspension crash in sympathy, and wondered whether the next pothole would be the one that rearranges your spine. Once upon a Reagan administration, we had a C, which is to say we were mediocre. Now, mediocrity looks like the good old days.

This might lead you to ponder the proper chariot in which to traverse our crumbling republic. That’s easy: the 2025 Land Rover Defender 110. After all, decline is a heritage industry for the British, as they have long built vehicles to ride out the end of empire with dignity, tweed and a good deal of leather. The 2025 Land Rover Defender is pure serenity in an age of decay. After all, Rome fell, Constantinople fell, Detroit fell, and yet someone, somewhere was driving home in something comfortable.

The Defender is here to make your corner of America tolerable. When the water main erupts like Vesuvius, the Defender can ford nearly 3 feet of water. When your local freeway collapses, the Defender’s approach, breakover and departure angles will step politely over the wreckage. Land Rover even offers all-terrain progress control, which is the genteel way of saying that the car will crawl over disaster at a steady, unruffled pace while you adjust your cuff links. It doesn’t matter whether it’s mud, sand, snow or simple government incompetence.

Of course, such feats are hardly news. This is a Land Rover, and Land Rovers do not apologize for being brilliant off-road. What’s interesting is that the Defender has slipped into something far more modern. Gone is its boxy predecessor that looked as if it was assembled by a hungover man with a socket wrench and a grudge. In its place? A lithe, chic, urbane SUV that looks like it was designed by Apple after a three-martini lunch. And that’s appropriate, given its clientele. You’re more likely seeing a 2025 Defender transporting an orthodontist and his labradoodle to his ski chalet in Aspen than shuttling wildlife biologists studying leopards in Africa.

Offered as the two-door 90, four-door 110 and extended-length 130, power comes from a 296-horsepower 2.0-liter turbocharged four-cylinder engine, a 395-horsepower supercharged and turbocharged 3.0-liter inline-six mild hybrid system, a 518-horsepower supercharged V-8 or a 626-horsepower twin-turbocharged V-8. As you might expect, all come with standard four-wheel drive, locking differentials and an eight-speed automatic transmission. Now built on a unibody platform with four-wheel independent suspension, the Defender remains stout and purposeful, as if the car itself were whispering: “Go on, drive over that mountain and see what happens.” Yet it remains comfortable and effortlessly controllable, unlike, say, your labradoodle.

Inside, the Defender is less expedition and more lounge. Instead of square edges and tractor parts, we now have rounded corners, a 11.4-inch infotainment touchscreen, a digital gauge cluster, head-up display, wireless charging, leather, seats that heat and cool, Apple CarPlay, Android Auto, onboard Wi-Fi hotspot are standard and an optional 10- or 14-speaker Meridian stereo system. Still, a magnesium beam runs the length of the instrument panel while rivets punctuate the door trim to take your mind off the cabin’s plushness. It’s not unlike a pair of diamond-encrusted hiking boots.

The 2025 Land Rover Defender is a car for end times and good times. You will not notice the potholes. You will not mind the traffic. You will, in fact, feel faintly superior to the entire sorry mess, because your seat is ventilated, your Wi-Fi is strong, and your suspension has more travel than you do. This is the genius of the Defender: It does not solve problems. It renders them irrelevant.

And when the great bridges tumble and the airports become ruins, when the nation itself wheezes into its dotage, there will still be a certain pleasure in motoring home in a Land Rover Defender.

Just don’t drive it across the golf course. It’s the last piece of infrastructure America still maintains.

2025 Land Rover Defender 110

Base price: $60,800

Engine: Supercharged, turbocharged 3.0-liter inline-6 mild hybrid

Horsepower/Torque: 395/406 pound-feet

EPA rating (combined city/highway): 17 mpg

Fuel required: Premium

Length/Width/Height: 212/79/78 inches

Ground clearance: 11.5 inches

Payload: 1,875 pounds

Cargo capacity: 15-76 cubic feet

Towing capacity: 8,200 pounds

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