RE: Defender at the Nurburgring!
Discussion
NomduJour said:
Neither Mercedes nor Fiat build their own pickup in any case - one’s a tarted-up Nissan, the other’s a rebadged Mitsubishi.
They also have commercial shop fronts for their vans and trucks which are located where commercial customers are and where they can segregate people buying vans from people buying cars. So, with a huge global commercial sales business already in place there still wasn’t the profit margin or business case to make their own truck. Yet there is for JLR!!!!
300bhp/ton said:
Why does it matter if there are half a dozen other players. There are more than enough customer to go round. Land Rover doesn't have to or even need to dominate the market, just take a likely very small percentage share to be profitable and successful.
VW are a relative new comer to the pickup market (ignoring the 2wd car based Caddy). If they took your advice there was no point or hope in them trying to build and sell a proper ladder chassis 4x4 pickup, because there were already other players. The reality is VW have expanded their product range and their customer base with another profitable vehicle.
I never said it was impossible or pointless. I stated there are (to my mind) two ways of doing so - either find a niche and exploit it, which was arguably all the Defender was good for in its last years as its full-frame/modular body construction and 3.5-ton towing capacity were pretty much unique by then, or go for the jugular with a conventional product and back it with huge marketing/sales/distribution resources.VW are a relative new comer to the pickup market (ignoring the 2wd car based Caddy). If they took your advice there was no point or hope in them trying to build and sell a proper ladder chassis 4x4 pickup, because there were already other players. The reality is VW have expanded their product range and their customer base with another profitable vehicle.
Doing a true Defender 2.0 as a low-volume, niche product is not financially viable and JLR doesn't have the resources to gamble on going the second route so, unsurprisingly, they're going a different route which is all-but guaranteed to make them a big pile of cash.
I explicitly mentioned the Amarok as an example of the 'go for the jugular' approach. I have no idea how much time or money VW spent on getting the Amarok to market, but it was five years from announcement to production, and who knows how long VW spent running the numbers, researching the market and laying the groundwork before even publically announcing the product. And VW has the biggest R&D budget in the industry - over 13 billion Euros per year, not to mention it being the worlds number one or number two car maker in general and something like the seventh biggest business in the world of any type. VW shifts over 700,000 commercial vehicles per year. The Commercial division alone brings in over 11 billion Euros of revenue each year and has pre-existing sales/service networks in virtually every country in the world, including in the Amarok's target markets. It has the capacity to build the Amarok on three continents - Europe, Africa and South America - which cover its main markets and allow for competitive labour costs.
That's the sort of clought you need to get a viable slice of the market in nine years from a standing start. JLR doesn't have those resources or abilities to hand even it wanted to take the huge risk of overturning its existing (and highly succesful) business model for no real reason.
I'd love to see a LR-badged modern utility pickup in the mould of the Amarok, but it would need direct syphoning of some of Tata's £100s-of-billions to the project, probably around a decade of investment in sales/service networks and global production capacity, complete overhauls of LR's design/testing capabilities and a willingness by the Tata accountants to 'prime the pump' with big spending and losses up-front to get a toehold and even then it would be a massive risk, and one that would actually make more sense for Tata to piggyback off their own vehicle division under their own name. But none of that is realistically going to happen so it's in "if I could wave a magic wand" territory. In the real here and now LR are taking the obvious, sensible and viable path before them.
And even if LR did produce a really superb Hilux/L200/Ranger/Amarok/D-Max/Colorado competitor, loads of One-Life-Live-It weirdy-beards in Camel-branded bush jackets would still complain that it wasn't a 'proper Land Rover' because it had IFS and a radio.
2xChevrons said:
Doing a true Defender 2.0 as a low-volume, niche product is not financially viable and JLR doesn't have the resources to gamble on going the second route so, unsurprisingly, they're going a different route which is all-but guaranteed to make them a big pile of cash.
The thing is, building a soft roader version of the Defender and building it as a plastic SUV is a "niche" product. The only real sales it'll steal will be from Land Rover.Yes, initially I'm sure the name will draw a few in and there may well be full order book. But as posted prevoiusly, JLR currently sell 10 SUV's. Adding another one that will look 90% the same, built out of 95% the same parts is hardly likely to be the recipe for world domination.
And lets not forget, SWB variants of 4x4's such as the Shogun or Land Cruiser tend to sell less well than th eLWB version. For utility or proper 4x4's such as the classic Defenders, Wranglers or Jimny's the opposite is generally true.
The point I'm trying to make is, if the Defender is just a re-hashed Discovery, built of of Discovery parts with Discovery abilities. Then we know how these sell already.
http://carsalesbase.com/european-car-sales-data/la...
Just over 13,000 in the EU last year.
Jeep managed to sell just under 7000 Wranglers in the EU last year, significantly less. But Jeep make no effort what so ever to sell the Jeep in Europe. And for the last 8 years Suzuki have been selling between 17,000 and 10,000 Jimny's a year in Europe.
To me, these numbers suggest that a Defender pitched at a similar market as the Jimny/Wrangler and the pickup market could easily result in very similar sales in the EU as the current Discovery does.
2xChevrons said:
I explicitly mentioned the Amarok as an example of the 'go for the jugular' approach. I have no idea how much time or money VW spent on getting the Amarok to market, but it was five years from announcement to production,
you do realise the Anorack is a Toyota with a new badge?NomduJour said:
If this car is better off road than its predecessor and its competitors, and better on road than its predecessor and its competitors, what possible difference does it make whether it’s carrying around 200kg of pig iron axles and a 1950s transfer box?
But will it be better? I'm not saying it needs to be.But as capable as a modern Discovery 5 is, it's too big and too plastic to go places a standard 25 year Defender will go with ease. The biggest difference the new vehicles have is traction control and optional locking rear diffs. But this is pretty basic physics on how differentials work and how to keep drive going to all 4 wheels.
There have been limited slip and locking diffs available for Defenders and Series Land Rovers for decades. And when equipped make them even more superior off road.
In my view the only way the new defender works as a real utility vehicle is if Toyota pull the plug on the 70-series (they recently updated the single cab to meet Aussie safety requirements so reckon that will be a few years yet), and even then only if they build up a dealer and servicing network. I struggle to see why any volume buyers would need/want a defender over a Hilux or similar but not the 70-series. Otherwise it’s mostly a lifestyle product for EU and NA (very few EU and NA buyers who need the capability of a 70-series but can’t get it due to crash regs).
Also worth bearing in mind that the vast majority of capability driven buyers care not about the last 1% of off road ability but durability and reliability instead, which LR has always struggled to build into their products, utilitarian or otherwise. Hand on heart, what real (ie not going to a pay and play site) purpose was the old defender better at than the 70-series?
Also worth bearing in mind that the vast majority of capability driven buyers care not about the last 1% of off road ability but durability and reliability instead, which LR has always struggled to build into their products, utilitarian or otherwise. Hand on heart, what real (ie not going to a pay and play site) purpose was the old defender better at than the 70-series?
... and, yet, everyone buys a twin-cab and, with a decent set of tyres, gets everywhere they ever need to go. LR have said this is the most capable thing they’ve built off-road (which is largely irrelevant, but seems to be a sticking point for the hi-vis-in-a-scrapper crowd).
What are you actually arguing about?
What are you actually arguing about?
NomduJour said:
Assuming similar tyres, what is more capable in usual U.K. off road situations - a pre-TC Defender, or a new Range Rover? (From experience, I know what my money’s on).
Why does it have to be a pre traction control Defender? Traction control was introduced with the Td5 model in 1997/8.But that aside, a Defender 90 has very short overhangs front and rear, so much better approach and departure angles. Meaning far less likely to ram it's nose or tail into the ground.
The break over angle is also far superior, so far less likely to become beached or knock the underside or the sills.
New models have lots of vulnerable plastic bumpers and big sills that are easy to damage. The bodywork is also big and sticks out, whereas on a Defender (or a Wrangler/Jimny) the body is much more square and you sit nearer to the edge of it.
You also can't have similar tyres, as the standard size on a Defender is quite a bit taller. Again another bonus off road.
Defenders are smaller, lighter and more nimble.
They also have better suspension travel and flex and due to live axles are a lot more stable off road and will keep their tyres in contact with the ground better.
They are also going to be more robust off road as they aren't relying on air springs, sensors or electronics to keep the vehicle going. Just good basic ability and capable suspension.
Example of what large overhangs can do:
My p38 Range Rover suffers the same thing and is arguably more capable than the modern RR's due to still having better suspension travel and 4 wheel traction control. But it's the size, length and overhangs that make it less capable than a Defender 90 in the vast majority of off road situations.
Example, here are some guys in Oz.
It's a D2, RRS and a D4. The D2 is arguably less capable than a Defender 90, because again it's longer with bigger overhangs. And despite the live axles, it runs a Watts rear end instead of an A frame and generally doesn't flex as well as a Defender.
But the thing to note is, while all the vehicles are capable. The D2 just looks so much more stable and less effort.
https://youtu.be/XUim1rGqn8s
And this is a vid I shot a few years back. A friends RRS, which uses the essentially the same suspension and traction systems as the current models. Impressive for what it is. But it lost it's number plate where it stuck it's nose into the ground. Pulled off a side moulding strip and lifted wheels every where.
Note it is super jacked up, that is where it had got itself beached and the computer went into panic mode and jacked itself up past the normal extended off road height (ie it has no down travel left). We also didn't take the vehicle through one bit, a dip with banks each side that you had to traverse. For the simple fact it would likely have wedged itself in there with the front and rear bumpers both in the ground and the wheels hanging in the air. Either that or it would have damaged the bumpers big time.
This isn't knocking it at all, it still a superb bit of kit. But far more likely to take damage than a Defender 90 and won't go the same places.
For reference a stock 90 or even a Series 1 thru 3 would drive around here all day wrong and not lift a wheel, nor pull any body parts off.
https://youtu.be/LMnLTWY3dFo
Bill said:
How many new Defender owners will push that hard off road??
Well that is how they vehicles develop reputations as serious off road vehicles. If your machine can't do that kind of stuff then it's not going to have the credibility. It's like sports cars. If Hyundai didn't build the i30N to the level of quality that it has then nobody would take them seriously as performance machines. Sure, very few people drive an i30N to it's limits on a track but it's done wonders for Hyundai's image and no doubt will have a continuing knock on effect on the sporting credentials of the brand well into the future.You have to have at least one vehicle capable of living up to the thing you built your reputation on. Nobody was taking Alfa Romeo seriously as makers of sporty cars again until the Giulia came out. Why do people think it's any different with Land Rover just because the area of performance is off roading rather than speed?
Gassing Station | General Gassing | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff