RE: Land Rover Defender | Frankfurt 2019
Discussion
The fact that it's being compared to the Discovery (and being considered by many Discovery owners) tells you all you need to know. - It's more of a D4 replacement than a true replacement for the old Defender. That goes some way to explaining the road car-spec plastic bumpers and more focus on turning it into a wheeled smartphone than making it rugged. The new Disco has disappeared off up it's own arse with prices up well into Range Rover Sport / Range Rover Vogue territory and surely the various models are all pinching sales from each other? I know I'd consider each model if I were in that market.
Regardless, if Land Rover under BL and Rover hadn't been woefully mismanaged all those years ago, maybe they'd still be able to compete in the c£25-30k volume truck market today? Having said that, the RR Evoque and Disco Sport start from £31k and are undoubtedly volume sellers, although obviously aimed at different customers. The problem for many owners of recent Defenders and Disco's is that they simply can't afford to stretch to the prices of the latest generation as they've jumped far faster than wages.
Regardless, if Land Rover under BL and Rover hadn't been woefully mismanaged all those years ago, maybe they'd still be able to compete in the c£25-30k volume truck market today? Having said that, the RR Evoque and Disco Sport start from £31k and are undoubtedly volume sellers, although obviously aimed at different customers. The problem for many owners of recent Defenders and Disco's is that they simply can't afford to stretch to the prices of the latest generation as they've jumped far faster than wages.
Clivey said:
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Regardless, if Land Rover under BL and Rover hadn't been woefully mismanaged all those years ago, maybe they'd still be able to compete in the c£25-30k volume truck market today? Having said that, the RR Evoque and Disco Sport start from £31k and are undoubtedly volume sellers, although obviously aimed at different customers. The problem for many owners of recent Defenders and Disco's is that they simply can't afford to stretch to the prices of the latest generation as they've jumped far faster than wages.
Why would they want to?Regardless, if Land Rover under BL and Rover hadn't been woefully mismanaged all those years ago, maybe they'd still be able to compete in the c£25-30k volume truck market today? Having said that, the RR Evoque and Disco Sport start from £31k and are undoubtedly volume sellers, although obviously aimed at different customers. The problem for many owners of recent Defenders and Disco's is that they simply can't afford to stretch to the prices of the latest generation as they've jumped far faster than wages.
You do understand that Land Rover sell 3 x the number of vehicles that they did in 2008?
As to relative cost, I had a new Range Rover in January 1995. It cost 40,000 pounds. That is worth 73,000 today. A new RR starts at 83k today, so 15% more than a 95 P38. Astonishing value!
If you need a Defender, buy an old one. They can be kept going for decades. Better still get yourself a series landy or even an early Range Rover with rubber mats.
This thing is just another silly bit of overpriced marketing tat which will break down expensively and is packed with built in obsolescence features so that suckers who rent them can justify renting a new one every three years.
This thing is just another silly bit of overpriced marketing tat which will break down expensively and is packed with built in obsolescence features so that suckers who rent them can justify renting a new one every three years.
unrepentant said:
Clivey said:
.
Regardless, if Land Rover under BL and Rover hadn't been woefully mismanaged all those years ago, maybe they'd still be able to compete in the c£25-30k volume truck market today? Having said that, the RR Evoque and Disco Sport start from £31k and are undoubtedly volume sellers, although obviously aimed at different customers. The problem for many owners of recent Defenders and Disco's is that they simply can't afford to stretch to the prices of the latest generation as they've jumped far faster than wages.
Why would they want to?Regardless, if Land Rover under BL and Rover hadn't been woefully mismanaged all those years ago, maybe they'd still be able to compete in the c£25-30k volume truck market today? Having said that, the RR Evoque and Disco Sport start from £31k and are undoubtedly volume sellers, although obviously aimed at different customers. The problem for many owners of recent Defenders and Disco's is that they simply can't afford to stretch to the prices of the latest generation as they've jumped far faster than wages.
You do understand that Land Rover sell 3 x the number of vehicles that they did in 2008?
As to relative cost, I had a new Range Rover in January 1995. It cost 40,000 pounds. That is worth 73,000 today. A new RR starts at 83k today, so 15% more than a 95 P38. Astonishing value!
Land Rover were selling just over 15000 Defenders at the end, worldwide.
They sold 127,000 Discovery Sports last year.
It was a very niche market that appealed more to us as an old, used vehicle than it ever did as a new purchase.
Not saying I'm not disappointed, but I'm also not surprised either as I would never have bought one new, not to use it properly anyway.
I go into London from Norfolk a lot through work, Bond Street, Kings Road etc. etc.
I see far more 'new' Defenders in Kennsington and Chelsea than I ever see in Norfolk.
And that sort of sums up where the buyers were coming from I'm afraid.
They sold 127,000 Discovery Sports last year.
It was a very niche market that appealed more to us as an old, used vehicle than it ever did as a new purchase.
Not saying I'm not disappointed, but I'm also not surprised either as I would never have bought one new, not to use it properly anyway.
I go into London from Norfolk a lot through work, Bond Street, Kings Road etc. etc.
I see far more 'new' Defenders in Kennsington and Chelsea than I ever see in Norfolk.
And that sort of sums up where the buyers were coming from I'm afraid.
Clivey said:
Regardless, if Land Rover under BL and Rover hadn't been woefully mismanaged all those years ago, maybe they'd still be able to compete in the c£25-30k volume truck market today? Having said that, the RR Evoque and Disco Sport start from £31k and are undoubtedly volume sellers, although obviously aimed at different customers. The problem for many owners of recent Defenders and Disco's is that they simply can't afford to stretch to the prices of the latest generation as they've jumped far faster than wages.
One thing I would say is that the Defender not competing at the utility end over the years isn’t solely the fault of woeful management and labourers. The uncomfortable truth is that those Leyland characteristics arguably played no role at all and that the vehicle just simply wasn’t what the market wanted in sufficient numbers to be truly viable.
Outside of us private punters the only client that LR ever had was the British Govt. from the day the first LR rolled off the line they were bought because that was the wish of the British Govt. They were exported to the colonies as the Govt locked out all competition and ran a closed market. They were sold by the Govt to other markets as a component of arms deals and also petrochemical deals. The utilities were Govt owned and locked out from overseas procurement and of course the British Army had to buy them.
Every single one of those markets was controlled by the British Govt and every single one of them dumped the Land Rover as rapidly as it possibly could the moment it became free of the yoke of the British Govt. throughout the entire history of the Land Rover it lives in a false, command economy with no competition.
Through the 50s and 60s the colonies were released and became free to buy on the global market. They dropped the LR overnight.
Then in the 80s came the privatisation of the Defense industry, the petrochemical industry and finally the utilities. Every single one of them dropped their LR sales overnight as they became free of command economics.
Even the legendary Welsh farmer who ran mobile sheep discos stopped buying the LR the moment trade tariffs were dropped by the British Govt to allow overseas goods in that met the farmers’ needs more precisely and more efficiently.
And finally, only after hundreds of innocent British soldiers were killed did the British Govt relinquish its grip over the MOD and permit procurement to source the right tool for the right job just as the colonies had and the privatisednindustries had decades ago.
All that remained was the affluent, private chap who was willing to pay over the odds and willing to accept discomfort and inefficiency in exchange for fun and happiness. Not just LRs last customer but in reality their only ever real customer. The customer that was always there and was willing to buy the product almost because of its failings. The new Defender is for that customer, the free market economy customer, it’s not for the now non existent command economy, forced user.
And the small number of consumers who have benefitted from that command economy by being supplied with a flow of used products that allow them to partake in their liesure activities still have an enormous pool of cars to chose from, with even more being supplied from the remaining MOD pool and an array of parts suppliers to keep them going. And so you are left asking just what isnit that somenof those people are really going on about, what is their real gripe?
The Land Cruiser was - by dint of what bits were available after WW2 - a bigger, more powerful vehicle from the beginning - that’s where Land Rover should have gone (in export markets at least), instead of pretending Rover car engines and axles were enough. Writing was on the wall by the time the Series III arrived.
NomduJour said:
The Land Cruiser was - by dint of what bits were available after WW2 - a bigger, more powerful vehicle from the beginning - that’s where Land Rover should have gone (in export markets at least), instead of pretending Rover car engines and axles were enough. Writing was on the wall by the time the Series III arrived.
I always felt it was the series gearbox that let them down in the drivetrain department. The 2.25 engines may not have been especially powerful, and they're too heavy, but they're very tough. The transfer box is likewise very strong, and the Salisbury axles (usually only found in the back of LWBs, but they did do front ones for things like armoured ones) are also pretty solid, a close relative of the Dana 60 family that's well regarded in the USA.Then you have the previously mentioned fully box section chassis made from a decent thickness of steel, rather than thinner C channel designs.
The old utility Land Rover has a lot of elements that brought it frustratingly close to having the potential to be an extremely tough piece of kit, if only a bit more had been done with it.
All in the past now I suppose.
DonkeyApple said:
........
Outside of us private punters the only client that LR ever had was the British Govt. from the day the first LR rolled off the line they were bought because that was the wish of the British Govt. They were exported to the colonies as the Govt locked out all competition and ran a closed market. They were sold by the Govt to other markets as a component of arms deals and also petrochemical deals. The utilities were Govt owned and locked out from overseas procurement and of course the British Army had to buy them.
Every single one of those markets was controlled by the British Govt and every single one of them dumped the Land Rover as rapidly as it possibly could the moment it became free of the yoke of the British Govt. throughout the entire history of the Land Rover it lives in a false, command economy with no competition.
Through the 50s and 60s the colonies were released and became free to buy on the global market. They dropped the LR overnight.
.......
I totally agree, but that still boils down to mismanagement in not producing something that would beat competition when it was on the cards.Outside of us private punters the only client that LR ever had was the British Govt. from the day the first LR rolled off the line they were bought because that was the wish of the British Govt. They were exported to the colonies as the Govt locked out all competition and ran a closed market. They were sold by the Govt to other markets as a component of arms deals and also petrochemical deals. The utilities were Govt owned and locked out from overseas procurement and of course the British Army had to buy them.
Every single one of those markets was controlled by the British Govt and every single one of them dumped the Land Rover as rapidly as it possibly could the moment it became free of the yoke of the British Govt. throughout the entire history of the Land Rover it lives in a false, command economy with no competition.
Through the 50s and 60s the colonies were released and became free to buy on the global market. They dropped the LR overnight.
.......
NomduJour said:
The only stockpiling I heard of was by Twisted.
Twisted prices make the new Defender look cheap!https://twistedautomotive.com/current-stock/
Will be to see if the hip urban buyers still want to spend big money on a Twisted Defender when they can have a well-specced new model instead for less.
Clivey said:
The fact that it's being compared to the Discovery (and being considered by many Discovery owners) tells you all you need to know. - It's more of a D4 replacement than a true replacement for the old Defender. That goes some way to explaining the road car-spec plastic bumpers and more focus on turning it into a wheeled smartphone than making it rugged. The new Disco has disappeared off up it's own arse with prices up well into Range Rover Sport / Range Rover Vogue territory and surely the various models are all pinching sales from each other? I know I'd consider each model if I were in that market.
You might consider each model, but you would choose the one that suits your needs. For me, that was the Disco. It couldn't have been a Vogue (even if it wasn't a lot more expensive) and the RRS is a different car again.dandare said:
DonkeyApple said:
........
Outside of us private punters the only client that LR ever had was the British Govt. from the day the first LR rolled off the line they were bought because that was the wish of the British Govt. They were exported to the colonies as the Govt locked out all competition and ran a closed market. They were sold by the Govt to other markets as a component of arms deals and also petrochemical deals. The utilities were Govt owned and locked out from overseas procurement and of course the British Army had to buy them.
Every single one of those markets was controlled by the British Govt and every single one of them dumped the Land Rover as rapidly as it possibly could the moment it became free of the yoke of the British Govt. throughout the entire history of the Land Rover it lives in a false, command economy with no competition.
Through the 50s and 60s the colonies were released and became free to buy on the global market. They dropped the LR overnight.
.......
I totally agree, but that still boils down to mismanagement in not producing something that would beat competition when it was on the cards.Outside of us private punters the only client that LR ever had was the British Govt. from the day the first LR rolled off the line they were bought because that was the wish of the British Govt. They were exported to the colonies as the Govt locked out all competition and ran a closed market. They were sold by the Govt to other markets as a component of arms deals and also petrochemical deals. The utilities were Govt owned and locked out from overseas procurement and of course the British Army had to buy them.
Every single one of those markets was controlled by the British Govt and every single one of them dumped the Land Rover as rapidly as it possibly could the moment it became free of the yoke of the British Govt. throughout the entire history of the Land Rover it lives in a false, command economy with no competition.
Through the 50s and 60s the colonies were released and became free to buy on the global market. They dropped the LR overnight.
.......
The Land Rover was, almost from birth, trapped by its origins as a side-project by the (then-independent) Rover Company. Rover ran on the low-volume, high-quality, high-price product model, with sales largely restricted to the British home market. That's exactly why they developed the Land Rover in the post-war years, because it would shift in more numbers to a wider market at a time when raw materials were rationed on the basis of a firm's export performance, than a Rover P3.
Rover never intended to make the LR in truely large numbers, and Rover was always a relatively tiny car company even by British standards. They had one factory and made about 10,000 saloon cars per year at a time when the likes of Austin and Morris were each turning out around 300,000. By the time the Series II Land Rover was introduced, it had romped ahead of the the Rover cars but was still hovering around the 30,000/year mark. That's essentially nothing by car industry standards.
We all have this fond image of the Land Rover dominating the global 4x4 market in its heyday, but as DonkeyApple has continually explained, it only did so in closed markets. Rover was a minnow compared to Jeep, Toyota or Nissan and wherever one of those firms was already established (or managed to muscle in as the trade barriers and economic/political ties to the former Empire loosened) the Land Rover was squeezed out (or never got established in the first place - e.g. India never took to the Land Rover as they adopted license-built Jeeps immediately after independence). Regardless of the design and quality of the product this was always going to happen as by the end of the 1960s Toyota was out-producing the Land Rover by a factor of nearly four, and that was when utility LR production was at its peak - 56,000 vehicles in 1970/71. Which is still small-fry by any objective measure.
Rover was well aware of this, and it was one reason why they developed the Range Rover as it was much better suited to their existing business model (high margin, low volume). They also had their plans to build what was essentially a Defender (utility 4x4 on Range Rover-derived structure and running gear), which was Project One-Eleven and was slated for launch in 1975. That got canned after the Leyland takeover and then the financial collapse of BLMC, which then required a fire-sale of BL's overseas operations and a 'retreat' to the home market which saw virtually all the overseas production/assembly ventures (Land Rover and otherwise) sold off or shut down, further reducing Rover/BL's global production capacity and further ensuring that it could never, ever match the Japanese giants toe-for-toe in the global 4x4 utility market.
Now, you could argue (with a huge pinch of hindsight) that BL management/UK government could have poured billions into Land Rover in 1975 to maintain and then grow its capacity and product development to give it a fighting chance, but that simply wasn't on the cards at the time.
The market position and design of the New Defender is really the end result of LR's entire history from 1948, not some horrific aberration or discarding of what has gone before. At no point since the first 80-inch was built did 'the Land Rover', in any of its forms, ever have a realistic chance of competing with products from the huge multinationals on the global stage.
Spec...
I’ve been playing with configuration a lot....if I spec the SE with the accessories I like it’s £62k..punchy.
I’ve now started with the S P300 and added kit and got to £56k which is really quite nice and as far as I can tell S is still well kitted and it only does without:
20 inch wheels - I like the smaller wheels
No meridian - don’t really care
No pano roof - don’t think it’s quite right in a defender
Some jazzy lights? I assume the S LEDs work well
Keyless - I have added this
Adjustable headrests - who cares?
On top of the S spec I’ve added
Grey 18 inch standard wheels (Go with black and 18 less likely to damage wheels)
Santorini Black
Black pack
Privacy glass
Black roof bars
Wheel arch protection
Raised intake (looks cool - don’t need this could remove)
Keyless
Mud flaps
Scuff plate
What do people think...missed anything essential?
I’ve been playing with configuration a lot....if I spec the SE with the accessories I like it’s £62k..punchy.
I’ve now started with the S P300 and added kit and got to £56k which is really quite nice and as far as I can tell S is still well kitted and it only does without:
20 inch wheels - I like the smaller wheels
No meridian - don’t really care
No pano roof - don’t think it’s quite right in a defender
Some jazzy lights? I assume the S LEDs work well
Keyless - I have added this
Adjustable headrests - who cares?
On top of the S spec I’ve added
Grey 18 inch standard wheels (Go with black and 18 less likely to damage wheels)
Santorini Black
Black pack
Privacy glass
Black roof bars
Wheel arch protection
Raised intake (looks cool - don’t need this could remove)
Keyless
Mud flaps
Scuff plate
What do people think...missed anything essential?
Ed T said:
Spec...
I’ve been playing with configuration a lot....if I spec the SE with the accessories I like it’s £62k..punchy.
I’ve now started with the S P300 and added kit and got to £56k which is really quite nice and as far as I can tell S is still well kitted and it only does without:
20 inch wheels - I like the smaller wheels
No meridian - don’t really care
No pano roof - don’t think it’s quite right in a defender
Some jazzy lights? I assume the S LEDs work well
Keyless - I have added this
Adjustable headrests - who cares?
On top of the S spec I’ve added
Grey 18 inch standard wheels (Go with black and 18 less likely to damage wheels)
Santorini Black
Black pack
Privacy glass
Black roof bars
Wheel arch protection
Raised intake (looks cool - don’t need this could remove)
Keyless
Mud flaps
Scuff plate
What do people think...missed anything essential?
Are base and S models available in the UK? In the US we are only getting SE and First Edition on the first wave.I’ve been playing with configuration a lot....if I spec the SE with the accessories I like it’s £62k..punchy.
I’ve now started with the S P300 and added kit and got to £56k which is really quite nice and as far as I can tell S is still well kitted and it only does without:
20 inch wheels - I like the smaller wheels
No meridian - don’t really care
No pano roof - don’t think it’s quite right in a defender
Some jazzy lights? I assume the S LEDs work well
Keyless - I have added this
Adjustable headrests - who cares?
On top of the S spec I’ve added
Grey 18 inch standard wheels (Go with black and 18 less likely to damage wheels)
Santorini Black
Black pack
Privacy glass
Black roof bars
Wheel arch protection
Raised intake (looks cool - don’t need this could remove)
Keyless
Mud flaps
Scuff plate
What do people think...missed anything essential?
Ed T said:
Spec...
I’ve been playing with configuration a lot....if I spec the SE with the accessories I like it’s £62k..punchy.
I’ve now started with the S P300 and added kit and got to £56k which is really quite nice and as far as I can tell S is still well kitted and it only does without:
20 inch wheels - I like the smaller wheels
No meridian - don’t really care
No pano roof - don’t think it’s quite right in a defender
Some jazzy lights? I assume the S LEDs work well
Keyless - I have added this
Adjustable headrests - who cares?
On top of the S spec I’ve added
Grey 18 inch standard wheels (Go with black and 18 less likely to damage wheels)
Santorini Black
Black pack
Privacy glass
Black roof bars
Wheel arch protection
Raised intake (looks cool - don’t need this could remove)
Keyless
Mud flaps
Scuff plate
What do people think...missed anything essential?
What would you be using it for? Personally, I wouldn’t order one without all the off-road bits (active locking diff etc.)...but then I wouldn’t buy a 4x4 at all if I didn’t plan on taking it off road. 😉I’ve been playing with configuration a lot....if I spec the SE with the accessories I like it’s £62k..punchy.
I’ve now started with the S P300 and added kit and got to £56k which is really quite nice and as far as I can tell S is still well kitted and it only does without:
20 inch wheels - I like the smaller wheels
No meridian - don’t really care
No pano roof - don’t think it’s quite right in a defender
Some jazzy lights? I assume the S LEDs work well
Keyless - I have added this
Adjustable headrests - who cares?
On top of the S spec I’ve added
Grey 18 inch standard wheels (Go with black and 18 less likely to damage wheels)
Santorini Black
Black pack
Privacy glass
Black roof bars
Wheel arch protection
Raised intake (looks cool - don’t need this could remove)
Keyless
Mud flaps
Scuff plate
What do people think...missed anything essential?
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