SLROC Forum

Could be an intersting couple of years ahead.
A few companies trying to fill the gap left with passing of the original Land Rover model range.
There is obviously Land Rover withe the New Defender.
Then there is Ineos who appear to be developing a lookylikey with BMW powertrain.
And the American contender Bollinger with the B1 & B2
 

The way I see it is this..... it looks like a decent car, I actually quite like it as a car in its own right, but it isn’t a defender, and it shouldn’t have been named that, the defender was the rugged utility workhorse of the country, your not going to put a 3day dead ewe in the back of the new defender! It should have been renamed, but other than that, I would have one happily!

Get all that but I reckon it looks pretty good.  Maybe in 6 years time someone will be popping a dead sheep in the back, who knows?  Think that grates on me is the cost.  I would love to have one and properly use it - GRRs and light events but at £40k, don’t think Land Rover have me in their sights as the target market. 

Expect to see a lot in Chelsea with pricey add ons........

Alan

Interesting how times have changed. When I first started my business Far by Four most of the driver training I did was with Defenders, many utility companies used them, they could be hired in if they were needed and they were fairly popular. Then we started seeing the odd pickup and alternative 4x4 vehicles and consequently not as many Defenders. Over the years the popularity of the pickup grew, the vehicles became better, more sophisticated to the point now where I seldom use my Defender for training and now also have my own pickup. Land Rover missed or were not interested in that market and filling the void left by the outgoing model. Given also that you can buy nearly two pickups for the price of one Defender the writing has probably been on the wall for a while. There is a utlity in the line up but it will be interesting to see who that appeals to.

I think it is worthy of the new name, it will be fantasticaly capable off road so that is a good enough start for me!

Maybe they should be called the Defender 100 as the SWB is actually 102 inches and the LWB should be called the Defender 120 as its wheelbase is 119 inches, I thought that it was of monocoque construction yet in their blurb for the winch they state it is attached to the chassis. Personally I will wait and see, it was interesting that none of the Land Rover Magazines were invited to the launch only four car magazines from the U.K. we’re fortunately one of those was from the same stable as one Land Rover magazine so we could read an early report on what Land Rover wanted them to see.

One of the few remaining logical arguments for a defender over a pickup for years has been the towing capacity advantage. The big pickups now can legally tow 3.5t so really land rover have been behind the game for a while. Would a D1/D2 pickup variant killed the defender off sooner? Quite possibly but it would have been a very appealing truck to many folk

One thing that kept the old style Defender alive and popular was it's ability to run in low range without a centre diff lock, a popular combination for reversing a heavy trailer in a concrete yard. Most if not all of the current pickups are locked up in low so are not able to happily manouver a trailer on a hard surface, it is a complaint I often here and the excuse for hanging onto the Defender however knackered it might be.......