One of the more entertaining automotive television commercials airing at present features a certain Japanese-made SUV and a boot-scootin’ Aussie comedian who mocks the “latte=sipping city slickers” and their plug-in hybrid technology.

Glenn Robbins’ comedic Russell Coight character seems based in part at least on Major Les Hiddins, aka ‘The Bush Tuckerman,’ a retired soldier, war veteran and outdoor survival specialist who became a household name in the 1990s—2000s off the back of the fascinating ABC TV documentary series of the same name.

The Major’s preferred choice of off-road vehicle happened to be an Australian Army Perentie 4x4 and Land Rover Australia shrewdly leveraged the relationship to promote its civilian version of same, the County 4x4 wagon.

As undeniably talented as Hiddins is, to the best of our knowledge Land Rover was never able to convince him to add boot scootin’ to his repertoire, which now seems a bit of a missed opportunity, given Coight’s adoption of the genre and the recent launch of a plug-in hybrid Defender 110, the spiritual successor to the Land Rover County/Perentie.

The new Defender 110 plug-in electric hybrid was announced in April this year but only officially unveiled at the SXSW futurist conference in Sydney recently.

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Dubbed the Defender 110 P400e, the new model promises zero-emissions driving and off-road capability in any terrain.

Available exclusively with the 110-body design, Land Rover claims the Defender 110 P400e delivers an impressive blend of performance and economy while also being capable of being driven in low-range purely in EV mode.

The new model’s petrol-electric drivetrain combination combines a 221kW 2.0-litre four-cylinder turbocharged petrol engine with a 105kW electric motor, for combined peak outputs of 297kW/640Nm.

The combination can accelerate the burly 2,583kg wagon from rest to 100km/h in a brisk 5.6 seconds, while the 19.2kWh lithium-ion battery allows for up to 52km of electric-only driving range, and fuel economy of 3.4L/100km.

The Defender is also capable of rapid DC charging, allowing a charge from 0–80% cent in 30 minutes using a rapid DC charger rated at 50kW or above.

At home, it can charge 0–100% in about 2.5 hours using a 7kW AC charger.

Available in X-Dynamic SE and X-Dynamic HSE trim levels, the Defender PHEV is approximately $10,000 to $12,000 more expensive than its nearest ICE-powered stablemate, with the P400e X-Dynamic SE priced at $126,275 and the HSE at $137,295 (MRLP) .