Pirelli To Supply Tyres For Land Rover Defender

New Land Rover Defender will come fitted with a specially designed Pirelli Scorpion Zero All Season Ultra High Performance (UHP) tyre

Pirelli announced that it has reinforced its partnership with Land Rover by creating new Scorpion Zero All Season tyres for the latest SUV Defender.

Land Rover Defender was launched in October and is available in two body styles, the 90 (3-door) and the 110 (5-door). There are five trim levels to choose from. The SUV comes with a 2.0-litre turbocharged 4-cylinder petrol engine that develops 300PS of maximum power and 400Nm of peak torque. The engine is mated to an 8-speed automatic transmission that sends power to all the four wheels.

Pirelli said that its engineers worked in tandem with their counterparts from Land Rover to design bespoke Scorpion Zero All Season tyres for the Defender: The development of the new Scorpion Zero All Season for the latest Defender started from Pirelli’s facilities in Carlisle and Milan with a series of indoor laboratory tests, before moving onto an outdoor programme.

Tyre maker further added that the Scorpion Zero All Season tyres were tested on 66 miles of varied terrain in United Kingdom’s Malvern Hills to find their limits. Snow and ice testing took place at Land Rover’s Revi Arjeplog in northern Sweden, while for soft handling and comfort, Pirelli used Land Rover’s own test track at Gaydon in Warwickshire, England.

The high speed and wet handling tests were done at the legendary Nurburgring in Germany, and at the Applus and Idiada facility in Spain, as well as at Pirelli’s own Vizzola test track. This is considered by Land Rover to be one of the best places to assess wet handling, underlining the long history between the two companies that dates back to the 1970s, when the first Cinturato P5 was developed for Jaguar, added Pirelli.

Looking for new tyres? Find dealers near you

The Pirelli Scorpion Zero All Season is an Ultra High Performance (UHP) tyre, intended for SUVs and designed to deliver maximum performance throughout every season: both in the dry and in the wet, guaranteeing excellent levels of comfort and safety, as well as reducing noise.

The specially designed tyres for the defender also offers best in class rolling resistance. To meet Land Rover’s performance and efficiency targets for the Defender, the Scorpion Zero All Season tyres underwent a modification to the structure, with a new design on the shoulder and a double tread block, which improves grip on mud, grass, and snow. This is essential to the Defender’s performance and stability: even at high speeds and on typically off-road surfaces, said Pirelli in a release.