No-one makes a proper basic rough and ready 4x4
Discussion
For once I agree with 300bhp/ton and it makes me feel dirty.
Pretty sure the reason people switched from the Defender to Jap pickups was that Defenders were expensive, unreliable and uncomfortable. But that said, they were good work trucks that should have been developed.
Sure JLR are moving up market, but there is a massive market globally for utilitarian 4x4 trucks, you've only to look on the news to see what every self respecting islamic nutter drives and everyone fighting back at them drives the same vehicles. They might not have the margin per unit of an up market SUV, but they get pumped out by the boat load. JLR have, or had, the know how to build a good work truck, so why not bring it up to date and make it reliable?
The problem with pickups, or at least the current ones, is that they are too big. You can't just lean into them to grab your toolbox, they pretty much need steps on the side.
Pretty sure the reason people switched from the Defender to Jap pickups was that Defenders were expensive, unreliable and uncomfortable. But that said, they were good work trucks that should have been developed.
Sure JLR are moving up market, but there is a massive market globally for utilitarian 4x4 trucks, you've only to look on the news to see what every self respecting islamic nutter drives and everyone fighting back at them drives the same vehicles. They might not have the margin per unit of an up market SUV, but they get pumped out by the boat load. JLR have, or had, the know how to build a good work truck, so why not bring it up to date and make it reliable?
The problem with pickups, or at least the current ones, is that they are too big. You can't just lean into them to grab your toolbox, they pretty much need steps on the side.
caelite said:
Sixpackpert said:
caelite said:
Oh wow, I never realised Mitsubishi was bringing back the Shogun Sport. Thats awesome.
Wait until you see what it looks like...
Wow... thats um... ok....
300bhp/ton said:
I don't object to thinking outside the box, but this isn't really answering the ops question, it's an answer to entirely different question.
Essentially a vehicle like that is still too big. And a Jimny, as awesome as it is, is too small.
What is missing in the market is a SWB utility 4x4. Or failing that, a compact 5 door utility 4x4.
e.g.
The thing to note is, width wise, the Defender is only this wide at the wheel arches, the body, i.e. front and rear, sides where the doors are and the front bumper are actually a lot narrower. And mirrors fold flat against the sides and hardly protrude any further than the wheel arches. The body is actually only 66" wide....
All modern Jap style pickup trucks have big bulbous bodies and are full width for their entire length. And then have huge mirrors on them too, that stick out really far and don't fold flat to the body. Combine this with the extreme length and only long wheel base offerings and you end up with vehicles that are cumbersome and overly large.
If you are dealing with narrow gates, lanes and roads. Then bigger wider vehicles are less practical and less suited to the conditions. And in some cases physically too wide to get to some places.
Not too mentioned that these long pick up trucks all have the turning circle of the QE2. Which if you are shunting trailers about in tight small yards, is yet another thing they are too big for.
You can get a swb shogun van.Essentially a vehicle like that is still too big. And a Jimny, as awesome as it is, is too small.
What is missing in the market is a SWB utility 4x4. Or failing that, a compact 5 door utility 4x4.
e.g.
| Make/Model | Length | Width |
|---|---|---|
| Ford Ranger | 211" | 72.8" |
| Defender 90 | 152.9" | 70.5" |
The thing to note is, width wise, the Defender is only this wide at the wheel arches, the body, i.e. front and rear, sides where the doors are and the front bumper are actually a lot narrower. And mirrors fold flat against the sides and hardly protrude any further than the wheel arches. The body is actually only 66" wide....
All modern Jap style pickup trucks have big bulbous bodies and are full width for their entire length. And then have huge mirrors on them too, that stick out really far and don't fold flat to the body. Combine this with the extreme length and only long wheel base offerings and you end up with vehicles that are cumbersome and overly large.
If you are dealing with narrow gates, lanes and roads. Then bigger wider vehicles are less practical and less suited to the conditions. And in some cases physically too wide to get to some places.
Not too mentioned that these long pick up trucks all have the turning circle of the QE2. Which if you are shunting trailers about in tight small yards, is yet another thing they are too big for.
Mammasaid said:
The rear is interesting....this from a L200 owner...but at least it has coils at the rear and option of 7 seats.
I suppose the back isn't awful, the only picture I saw had a massive spoiler which is ommited in yours, it does look better without. I really don't understand the strange obsession with 'pinched' waistlines, to be it looks ok on estate cars (Volvo V70 being an example where the 'waist' sweeps up to meet the roof sweeping down), on SUVs it just looks hidious.A real shame considering the old one looked great:
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Boxxy but well proportioned, in an ideal world they would just re-release that but with the updated lighting clusters. This is from an ex-L200 and SWB Shogun owner, I really hope the full fat Shogun never gets this treatment, although I know it is going to happen as they havn't really updated that since the mk3 release in '00.
That being said... it looks better with a bit of muck on it
Willy Nilly said:
Sure JLR are moving up market, but there is a massive market globally for utilitarian 4x4 trucks, you've only to look on the news to see what every self respecting islamic nutter drives and everyone fighting back at them drives the same vehicles. They might not have the margin per unit of an up market SUV, but they get pumped out by the boat load. JLR have, or had, the know how to build a good work truck, so why not bring it up to date and make it reliable?
The problem with pickups, or at least the current ones, is that they are too big. You can't just lean into them to grab your toolbox, they pretty much need steps on the side.
Speaking to a friend at JLR at the weekend, he said they would have been perfectly happy to continue building the Defender as it was a high margin car, but they could not keep it legal. The problem with pickups, or at least the current ones, is that they are too big. You can't just lean into them to grab your toolbox, they pretty much need steps on the side.
He said the new Defender is about a year away. Their biggest issue now is that cars are very techy, and they are struggling to make it basic enough for the military, who will only be willing to pay pittance (but of course adds credibility to the tough guy image).
Hopefully they will at least do a really pared down one with a very basic interior, steel wheels etc, that will make it genuinely affordable.
hondansx said:
Speaking to a friend at JLR at the weekend, he said they would have been perfectly happy to continue building the Defender as it was a high margin car, but they could not keep it legal.
He said the new Defender is about a year away. Their biggest issue now is that cars are very techy, and they are struggling to make it basic enough for the military, who will only be willing to pay pittance (but of course adds credibility to the tough guy image).
Hopefully they will at least do a really pared down one with a very basic interior, steel wheels etc, that will make it genuinely affordable.
Sorry but I struggle to believe the Defender couldn't remain legal. Is your friend willing to share any specifics on why it would have been illegal?He said the new Defender is about a year away. Their biggest issue now is that cars are very techy, and they are struggling to make it basic enough for the military, who will only be willing to pay pittance (but of course adds credibility to the tough guy image).
Hopefully they will at least do a really pared down one with a very basic interior, steel wheels etc, that will make it genuinely affordable.
300bhp/ton said:
hondansx said:
Speaking to a friend at JLR at the weekend, he said they would have been perfectly happy to continue building the Defender as it was a high margin car, but they could not keep it legal.
He said the new Defender is about a year away. Their biggest issue now is that cars are very techy, and they are struggling to make it basic enough for the military, who will only be willing to pay pittance (but of course adds credibility to the tough guy image).
Hopefully they will at least do a really pared down one with a very basic interior, steel wheels etc, that will make it genuinely affordable.
Sorry but I struggle to believe the Defender couldn't remain legal. Is your friend willing to share any specifics on why it would have been illegal?He said the new Defender is about a year away. Their biggest issue now is that cars are very techy, and they are struggling to make it basic enough for the military, who will only be willing to pay pittance (but of course adds credibility to the tough guy image).
Hopefully they will at least do a really pared down one with a very basic interior, steel wheels etc, that will make it genuinely affordable.
Jimmy Recard said:
The Defender (at the point it went out of production) must have been the most labour-intensive mainstream car built in the first world.
Look at all the riveting, just for a start. It wasn't designed to be built by robots in the 21st century.
Indeed...Look at all the riveting, just for a start. It wasn't designed to be built by robots in the 21st century.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_AJgbNN7RE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFllZO144FI
TooMany2cvs said:
That was the official line, with vague mutterings about emissions (how many times has it been re-engined already?) and airbags - but the reality is generally accepted to have been simply that it cost too much to build. It certainly wasn't "high-margin" in any way, shape or form. Assembly was almost entirely manual, for a start.
Yeah I know the mutterings 
But it used the same engine as the Ranger and Transit. So can't have been emissions. Nor airbags. I agree and believe it was all about assembly and margin and nothing to do with the vehicle remaining legal.
TooMany2cvs said:
That was coolMammasaid said:
caelite said:
Sixpackpert said:
caelite said:
Oh wow, I never realised Mitsubishi was bringing back the Shogun Sport. Thats awesome.
Wait until you see what it looks like...Wow... thats um... ok....
No thanks.
Willy Nilly said:
For once I agree with 300bhp/ton and it makes me feel dirty.
Pretty sure the reason people switched from the Defender to Jap pickups was that Defenders were expensive, unreliable and uncomfortable. But that said, they were good work trucks that should have been developed.
Sure JLR are moving up market, but there is a massive market globally for utilitarian 4x4 trucks, you've only to look on the news to see what every self respecting islamic nutter drives and everyone fighting back at them drives the same vehicles. They might not have the margin per unit of an up market SUV, but they get pumped out by the boat load. JLR have, or had, the know how to build a good work truck, so why not bring it up to date and make it reliable?
The problem with pickups, or at least the current ones, is that they are too big. You can't just lean into them to grab your toolbox, they pretty much need steps on the side.
I agree but there is the small issue of economics. Pretty sure the reason people switched from the Defender to Jap pickups was that Defenders were expensive, unreliable and uncomfortable. But that said, they were good work trucks that should have been developed.
Sure JLR are moving up market, but there is a massive market globally for utilitarian 4x4 trucks, you've only to look on the news to see what every self respecting islamic nutter drives and everyone fighting back at them drives the same vehicles. They might not have the margin per unit of an up market SUV, but they get pumped out by the boat load. JLR have, or had, the know how to build a good work truck, so why not bring it up to date and make it reliable?
The problem with pickups, or at least the current ones, is that they are too big. You can't just lean into them to grab your toolbox, they pretty much need steps on the side.
To build half a million utility trucks a year you need twice the land that JLR currently have. That isn't going to happen in the UK. Any cheap, high volume vehicle would need to be built overseas.
At the same time, JLR have no dealers for cheap utility vehicles. Their current network is geared to prestige in both location and staff. To sell half a million low end utility vehicles a year would require an entirely new dealer network to be created. That also isn't going to happen.
And then once you have created a completely new dealer network from scratch, employed all the new staff and leased the land and build the factories you have the slight problem that JLR is too small to economically compete against the likes of Ford or Toyota anyway. They don't have the buying power for the materials, they don't have the range of products to amortise switchgear and systems across. The simple fact is that JLR is too small to compete on cost.
It really is very simple, JLR is not geographically or economically able to enter that segment. And that decision was made back in the 70s when they decided not to compete against the foreign upstarts and repeated again and again at each opportunity to take the Defender product forward.
DonkeyApple said:
At the same time, JLR have no dealers for cheap utility vehicles. Their current network is geared to prestige in both location and staff.
They've been selling Defenders quite happily through their dealers. Farmers have been wandering past the RRSs on the way to the Collie-spec D90 pickups... My nearest LR dealer is opposite a farm machinery supplier.Longer they leave it, obviously, that link's going to get broken.
TooMany2cvs said:
300bhp/ton said:
hondansx said:
Speaking to a friend at JLR at the weekend, he said they would have been perfectly happy to continue building the Defender as it was a high margin car, but they could not keep it legal.
He said the new Defender is about a year away. Their biggest issue now is that cars are very techy, and they are struggling to make it basic enough for the military, who will only be willing to pay pittance (but of course adds credibility to the tough guy image).
Hopefully they will at least do a really pared down one with a very basic interior, steel wheels etc, that will make it genuinely affordable.
Sorry but I struggle to believe the Defender couldn't remain legal. Is your friend willing to share any specifics on why it would have been illegal?He said the new Defender is about a year away. Their biggest issue now is that cars are very techy, and they are struggling to make it basic enough for the military, who will only be willing to pay pittance (but of course adds credibility to the tough guy image).
Hopefully they will at least do a really pared down one with a very basic interior, steel wheels etc, that will make it genuinely affordable.
So with sales rapidly falling, all govt contracts gone, the corporate orders fallen to just a few units a year, margins low for a JLR product, land at a huge premium and a market that demands more space, comfort and on road ability than the old dear could ever deliver it transpired that many reasons to end production all built up to leave us where we are now.
All we can hope is that the eventual replacement manages to meet the expectations and demands of the modern debt fuelled mincer while remaining sufficiently tech free to be solid and reliable.
Stupid question but it is one I have always thought of:
How did the Defender get past EU safety regs for continued sale in the first place? Surely no airbags and steel bumpers have been a big nono for a fairly long while? Did it just get grandfathered in since they pretty much havn't changed it since the 80s? Or was the Defender low volume enough for them to get by the rules?
Will the new one have to adhere to the current rules? If so I don't hold out much hope for it, big soft-touch plastic bumpers & oodles of airbags does not make for a good offroader.
The way we saw it at my work was that a modern crew cab was objectively better than our 2 Defenders (a 90 and a 110) in every way, better handling, more powerful, comfortable etc etc. However when you thrashed the both down a forestry track with a trailer the 110 would come out the other side with a few twigs hanging off its bumper, the Ranger following it will be in tatters with plastic trim hanging all over the place, this was the sole advantage offered by the Defender over the crew cabs, its ability to take utter abuse without showing it. This advantage will be entirely lost if the new one has all the plastic fantastic safety guff forced onto it.
How did the Defender get past EU safety regs for continued sale in the first place? Surely no airbags and steel bumpers have been a big nono for a fairly long while? Did it just get grandfathered in since they pretty much havn't changed it since the 80s? Or was the Defender low volume enough for them to get by the rules?
Will the new one have to adhere to the current rules? If so I don't hold out much hope for it, big soft-touch plastic bumpers & oodles of airbags does not make for a good offroader.
The way we saw it at my work was that a modern crew cab was objectively better than our 2 Defenders (a 90 and a 110) in every way, better handling, more powerful, comfortable etc etc. However when you thrashed the both down a forestry track with a trailer the 110 would come out the other side with a few twigs hanging off its bumper, the Ranger following it will be in tatters with plastic trim hanging all over the place, this was the sole advantage offered by the Defender over the crew cabs, its ability to take utter abuse without showing it. This advantage will be entirely lost if the new one has all the plastic fantastic safety guff forced onto it.
DonkeyApple said:
TooMany2cvs said:
300bhp/ton said:
hondansx said:
Speaking to a friend at JLR at the weekend, he said they would have been perfectly happy to continue building the Defender as it was a high margin car, but they could not keep it legal.
He said the new Defender is about a year away. Their biggest issue now is that cars are very techy, and they are struggling to make it basic enough for the military, who will only be willing to pay pittance (but of course adds credibility to the tough guy image).
Hopefully they will at least do a really pared down one with a very basic interior, steel wheels etc, that will make it genuinely affordable.
Sorry but I struggle to believe the Defender couldn't remain legal. Is your friend willing to share any specifics on why it would have been illegal?He said the new Defender is about a year away. Their biggest issue now is that cars are very techy, and they are struggling to make it basic enough for the military, who will only be willing to pay pittance (but of course adds credibility to the tough guy image).
Hopefully they will at least do a really pared down one with a very basic interior, steel wheels etc, that will make it genuinely affordable.
So with sales rapidly falling, all govt contracts gone, the corporate orders fallen to just a few units a year, margins low for a JLR product, land at a huge premium and a market that demands more space, comfort and on road ability than the old dear could ever deliver it transpired that many reasons to end production all built up to leave us where we are now.
All we can hope is that the eventual replacement manages to meet the expectations and demands of the modern debt fuelled mincer while remaining sufficiently tech free to be solid and reliable.
caelite said:
Stupid question but it is one I have always thought of:
How did the Defender get past EU safety regs for continued sale in the first place? Surely no airbags and steel bumpers have been a big nono for a fairly long while? Did it just get grandfathered in since they pretty much havn't changed it since the 80s? Or was the Defender low volume enough for them to get by the rules?
Will the new one have to adhere to the current rules? If so I don't hold out much hope for it, big soft-touch plastic bumpers & oodles of airbags does not make for a good offroader.
The way we saw it at my work was that a modern crew cab was objectively better than our 2 Defenders (a 90 and a 110) in every way, better handling, more powerful, comfortable etc etc. However when you thrashed the both down a forestry track with a trailer the 110 would come out the other side with a few twigs hanging off its bumper, the Ranger following it will be in tatters with plastic trim hanging all over the place, this was the sole advantage offered by the Defender over the crew cabs, its ability to take utter abuse without showing it. This advantage will be entirely lost if the new one has all the plastic fantastic safety guff forced onto it.
I think it met all the regs required. Same as some other vehicles do. Airbags aren't mandatory I believe for this class of commercial Vehcile. How did the Defender get past EU safety regs for continued sale in the first place? Surely no airbags and steel bumpers have been a big nono for a fairly long while? Did it just get grandfathered in since they pretty much havn't changed it since the 80s? Or was the Defender low volume enough for them to get by the rules?
Will the new one have to adhere to the current rules? If so I don't hold out much hope for it, big soft-touch plastic bumpers & oodles of airbags does not make for a good offroader.
The way we saw it at my work was that a modern crew cab was objectively better than our 2 Defenders (a 90 and a 110) in every way, better handling, more powerful, comfortable etc etc. However when you thrashed the both down a forestry track with a trailer the 110 would come out the other side with a few twigs hanging off its bumper, the Ranger following it will be in tatters with plastic trim hanging all over the place, this was the sole advantage offered by the Defender over the crew cabs, its ability to take utter abuse without showing it. This advantage will be entirely lost if the new one has all the plastic fantastic safety guff forced onto it.
The only really thing it didn't meet in the US was the roll over regs, which is why NAS Defenders have external cages. But wasn't an issue here.
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