Land Rover Defender toy cars, scale models and RC

The new Defender is the 2020 car: rounded corners, the flat roof with Alpine windows, the side-mounted spare, a roof rack and side ladder on most models here. It is the car people in India see on the road and photograph, and it is the one to buy for anyone under forty. The classic Defender is the riveted aluminium box Land Rover built from 1948 to 2016 with barely a change: flat windscreen, exposed hinges, a spare on the rear door. It is the one to buy for anyone who drove one, or whose family had one on a farm or in the army.

In 1:24 the two are the same price and the same size, and they look right together. Most customers who buy one end up with the other.

The static models are the ones that matter to a collector: the 1:24 with its roof rack and pull-back motor, and the licensed 1:18 with the working rear door and lights. They sit on a shelf and they are built to be looked at. The remote control Defenders are for driving. The metal-bodied RC has opening doors, lights and a smoke effect from the exhaust, and it is the one that can do both jobs, drive on the floor and sit on the shelf between runs. The plastic 1:16 RC is lighter, slower and cheaper, and it is the one for a five-year-old.

One Defender here is officially licensed by Jaguar Land Rover, and it shows. The 1:18 is built from Land Rover's own data, so the roof height, the rear overhang and the wheel arches are correct rather than approximated. The rear door is side-hinged with the full-size spare on it and opens onto a load bay with the tie-down rails; all four doors open onto the Defender's exposed-structure dashboard; the bonnet lifts; the front wheels steer; and a button brings up the headlamps and tail lights with an engine sample. It weighs close to a kilogram. It costs ₹2,499, which is a third of what a licensed 1:18 Defender sells for through import channels.

Six and up: the 1:24 new Defender 110. It has the pull-back motor, the lights, a metal body that shrugs off a drop from a table and a roof rack that children immediately load with other toys. Under six: the plastic 1:16 remote control Defender, which has no small parts to lose and a speed set for a living room. Teenagers: the metal RC with smoke, or the licensed 1:18 if they are the collecting kind. Every one ships free with a GST invoice.