RE: 'Hard Top' returns to Land Rover Defender
Discussion
king useless for builders and landscape gardeners! Going back to the Grenadier for a second I think JLRs plan was Old Defender -> new Defender. What we seem to have ended up with (excluding badge names) is discovery -> New Defender ; Old Defender -> Grenadier. I can see exactly why JLR would have sued over this, it’s just a pity they couldn’t have built a ‘Grenadier’ 10 years ago instead of heritage run offs and no real development before now.
For all the rest of this forum probably thinks they know what they are doing, I can’t imagine Jeep ever allowing a pretender to take their Halo Vehicle crown but then they spend a fortune developing replacements that were more and more comfortable but looked similar (ish). It’s as if Jeep didn’t build the JK or JL but went straight from the TJ to the current Cherokee put a boxier body on it and called it the New Wrangler.
That being said I think the new defender as a vehicle looks unique; the hard top might just drop the price down a bit and tbh having two new defender style vehicles is hardly a bad thing. I just wonder how many sales it will take from Discovery but I’m presuming that will be updated also. The problem is if the Grenadier ends up being super comfy with a nice engine and decent interior it might be closer to the the new defender than they hoped. I guess we need to see the interior and the finished vehicle. I’m guessing JLR don’t care about the commercial sector although any sale is obviously a bonus but they don’t want middle class mountain biking families to decide there is another lifestyle vehicle to theirs. I’d be interested to see if the Hard Top ends up as the vehicle you see in car parks at the foot of trails particularly as it will have three seats? I’m presuming it cant have two seat rows to be “commercial”
Edit - looks like the grenadier might now be Le Grenadier. Panic over JLR as you were
For all the rest of this forum probably thinks they know what they are doing, I can’t imagine Jeep ever allowing a pretender to take their Halo Vehicle crown but then they spend a fortune developing replacements that were more and more comfortable but looked similar (ish). It’s as if Jeep didn’t build the JK or JL but went straight from the TJ to the current Cherokee put a boxier body on it and called it the New Wrangler.
That being said I think the new defender as a vehicle looks unique; the hard top might just drop the price down a bit and tbh having two new defender style vehicles is hardly a bad thing. I just wonder how many sales it will take from Discovery but I’m presuming that will be updated also. The problem is if the Grenadier ends up being super comfy with a nice engine and decent interior it might be closer to the the new defender than they hoped. I guess we need to see the interior and the finished vehicle. I’m guessing JLR don’t care about the commercial sector although any sale is obviously a bonus but they don’t want middle class mountain biking families to decide there is another lifestyle vehicle to theirs. I’d be interested to see if the Hard Top ends up as the vehicle you see in car parks at the foot of trails particularly as it will have three seats? I’m presuming it cant have two seat rows to be “commercial”
Edit - looks like the grenadier might now be Le Grenadier. Panic over JLR as you were
P6 as usual spouting absolute b*ll*ck he's made up to support his argument:
1) We have no idea how much cross axle wheel travel the Grenadier will have.
In fact, given that only a few early mules exist, even Ineos probably don't yet know. However, the CA travel it does have will be a compromise as a result of trying to make it work on-road and of course, pass those pesky EU certification tests like the moose test without ending up shiny side down. In P6's ridiculous world, where anyone can do anything, simply having beam axles means 300 feet of travel espcially once you bring the mytical "one side of the axle pushes the other down" b*ll*cks into your fantasy equation (hint, ALL suspension systems do this!!!!). I'll take a punt right now that the Grenadier actually ends up with about the same CA travel as the last of the Defenders, simply because it can't really be any worse to drive on-road than those, and has all the same engineering compromises (it might even have less CA travel, because it has CA lockers and they might want to make it not COMPLETELY TERRIBLE to drive)
2) There is nothing that says "ladder chassis = STRONG, uni-body = weak" In P6's world, a ladder chassis basically an amazing force field, providing mythical powers of strength and robustness. But in the real world where physics actually acts, depsite what P6 might think, the strength and Stiffness of a load bearing device doesn't care about history and bias. There is no reason a unibody vehicle cannot be as "strong" as a ladder chassis'd one, in fact, because the load can be carried across a larger cross section of material, and critically in a 3d plane (ladder chassis are 1d strong), for any given mass, the unibody car will be both stronger and enourmously stiffer. And old defender had a chassis that was about as stiff as a wet letuce leaf, and as a result, the body basically vibrated and fell off on rough roads, and the doors pop open when you axle twist it. If you crash it, well, you've seen the pictures, it's bye-bye legs, ankles and feet, and probably face too. The only significant advantage a ladder chassis has is because it HAS to be made of think materal (because the load is concetrated in the chassis, rather than spread out) bolting high point load attachements to it, like tow bars, is easier. But design a unibody to take towing and recovery loads, ie put in place high strength, spreading points and there is nothing that says a unibody is any worse at towing, and in fact, being stiffer it'll tow much better! JLR have designed all these points (yes, including winch mounting) in their unibody cars for years.
Here's one of P6's "super strong" ladder chassis Defenders demonsrating the "superiority" of that technology
Ohh.
sorry, i'm not impressed (neither probably was the driver, who id guess broke both legs in this accident and possibly was killed given the level of cabin intrusion / deformation as the "super strong" ladder chassis folded up and rammed the front wheel into the bulkhead and pedal box)
3) 3500kg towing limit.
This is a CERTIFICATION Limit. It has absolutely nothing to do with chassis / body strength. It's a rating that is gained by meeting certain performance limits, mainly on brake capability and stability. For a manufacturer, it also tends to dominate engine cooling system design, because the vehicle has to pass gradability tests at full GVW/GTW. Any car can pull 3500kg. A smart car could pull 3.5 tonnes on a flat road easily, despite being not "rated" to do so legally. The new defender, with it's autobox, and non-chocloate drivetrain will support much higher drawbar loads than the old defender, espcially as the old beam axles twist under hgih torque and cause the tyres to skip as the radius arms wind up, which then breaks the chocloate axles....
4) AIRDROP
Having or not having a ladder chassis is compeltely irrelevant to being air-droppable:
no ladder chassis there^ :-)
There is no reason the new defender couldn't be air dropped. It has tied down points that are suitably rated (the recovery points built into the front and rear cross members)
5) Ladder chassis "protects" the underside
No it doesn't. which is why a 5 second search for "landrover underbody protection" turns up 601,00 hits
https://www.google.com/search?bih=937&biw=1920...
The underside of an old landrover is an absolute flappy snag hazard of vunerable parts, simply because there was never time or money to properly design everything to be nicely fitted and covered by skid plates. The new defender is actually designed to be less vunerable out of the factory, and thanks to it's independant architecture, tucks a lot of parts much better into the envelope of the body. And of course, because a unibody carries its loads across ALL its structure, minor dents or damage to the floor pan doesn't matter. (have you ever seen a gravel stage rally car after a few years of use?)
And lets not talk about chassis corrosion and rot. The average 20 yo defender has a colander for a chassis (and bulkhead) so it's even less strong than when it was new, and lets not talk about what happens when you roll an old defender, where that "super strong" heavy ladder chassis and axles then basically crushes the flimsy ally body and all the people in the car:
These ^^^^ are PROVEABLE FACTS. Not heresay, opinion, or bias. Because 50 years ago a 109 did x, y or z is not just history, it's irrelevant history...
1) We have no idea how much cross axle wheel travel the Grenadier will have.
In fact, given that only a few early mules exist, even Ineos probably don't yet know. However, the CA travel it does have will be a compromise as a result of trying to make it work on-road and of course, pass those pesky EU certification tests like the moose test without ending up shiny side down. In P6's ridiculous world, where anyone can do anything, simply having beam axles means 300 feet of travel espcially once you bring the mytical "one side of the axle pushes the other down" b*ll*cks into your fantasy equation (hint, ALL suspension systems do this!!!!). I'll take a punt right now that the Grenadier actually ends up with about the same CA travel as the last of the Defenders, simply because it can't really be any worse to drive on-road than those, and has all the same engineering compromises (it might even have less CA travel, because it has CA lockers and they might want to make it not COMPLETELY TERRIBLE to drive)
2) There is nothing that says "ladder chassis = STRONG, uni-body = weak" In P6's world, a ladder chassis basically an amazing force field, providing mythical powers of strength and robustness. But in the real world where physics actually acts, depsite what P6 might think, the strength and Stiffness of a load bearing device doesn't care about history and bias. There is no reason a unibody vehicle cannot be as "strong" as a ladder chassis'd one, in fact, because the load can be carried across a larger cross section of material, and critically in a 3d plane (ladder chassis are 1d strong), for any given mass, the unibody car will be both stronger and enourmously stiffer. And old defender had a chassis that was about as stiff as a wet letuce leaf, and as a result, the body basically vibrated and fell off on rough roads, and the doors pop open when you axle twist it. If you crash it, well, you've seen the pictures, it's bye-bye legs, ankles and feet, and probably face too. The only significant advantage a ladder chassis has is because it HAS to be made of think materal (because the load is concetrated in the chassis, rather than spread out) bolting high point load attachements to it, like tow bars, is easier. But design a unibody to take towing and recovery loads, ie put in place high strength, spreading points and there is nothing that says a unibody is any worse at towing, and in fact, being stiffer it'll tow much better! JLR have designed all these points (yes, including winch mounting) in their unibody cars for years.
Here's one of P6's "super strong" ladder chassis Defenders demonsrating the "superiority" of that technology
Ohh.
sorry, i'm not impressed (neither probably was the driver, who id guess broke both legs in this accident and possibly was killed given the level of cabin intrusion / deformation as the "super strong" ladder chassis folded up and rammed the front wheel into the bulkhead and pedal box)
3) 3500kg towing limit.
This is a CERTIFICATION Limit. It has absolutely nothing to do with chassis / body strength. It's a rating that is gained by meeting certain performance limits, mainly on brake capability and stability. For a manufacturer, it also tends to dominate engine cooling system design, because the vehicle has to pass gradability tests at full GVW/GTW. Any car can pull 3500kg. A smart car could pull 3.5 tonnes on a flat road easily, despite being not "rated" to do so legally. The new defender, with it's autobox, and non-chocloate drivetrain will support much higher drawbar loads than the old defender, espcially as the old beam axles twist under hgih torque and cause the tyres to skip as the radius arms wind up, which then breaks the chocloate axles....
4) AIRDROP
Having or not having a ladder chassis is compeltely irrelevant to being air-droppable:
no ladder chassis there^ :-)
There is no reason the new defender couldn't be air dropped. It has tied down points that are suitably rated (the recovery points built into the front and rear cross members)
5) Ladder chassis "protects" the underside
No it doesn't. which is why a 5 second search for "landrover underbody protection" turns up 601,00 hits
https://www.google.com/search?bih=937&biw=1920...
The underside of an old landrover is an absolute flappy snag hazard of vunerable parts, simply because there was never time or money to properly design everything to be nicely fitted and covered by skid plates. The new defender is actually designed to be less vunerable out of the factory, and thanks to it's independant architecture, tucks a lot of parts much better into the envelope of the body. And of course, because a unibody carries its loads across ALL its structure, minor dents or damage to the floor pan doesn't matter. (have you ever seen a gravel stage rally car after a few years of use?)
And lets not talk about chassis corrosion and rot. The average 20 yo defender has a colander for a chassis (and bulkhead) so it's even less strong than when it was new, and lets not talk about what happens when you roll an old defender, where that "super strong" heavy ladder chassis and axles then basically crushes the flimsy ally body and all the people in the car:
These ^^^^ are PROVEABLE FACTS. Not heresay, opinion, or bias. Because 50 years ago a 109 did x, y or z is not just history, it's irrelevant history...
DonkeyApple said:
LimaDelta said:
RoverP6B said:
including dropping them out of the back of aeroplanes. Try doing either of those with a monocoque that was only ever developed to tow a maximum 3500kg, and see how many ripples or degrees of bend you put in the floorpan and how many spot welds you rip open.
I am far from the biggest fan of the new Defender but I have to say that is labouring the point somewhat. I'm pretty sure (checks notes...), that being airdroppable was never on JLRs list of requirements. Sheep and axles are one thing, but I think you just jumped the shark with that one.soxboy said:
Dear Mr McGovern,
I am very disappointed to note that you have not engineered your new model to take into account the significant glider towing market. I fear you have made an error which has the potential to cost you up to a dozen secondhand sales over the next 20 years.
Yours, angrily...….
Have you seen what decent gliders cost these days?! I'm also betting you've never been to Portmoake, or Sutton Bank, or Lasham... at the start/end of a good day with the right weather, there can be several million quid's worth of 4x4s with gliders in trailers parked up around the airfield, and that has always included a large proportion of newish Land Rovers. You need deep pockets in gliding these days, and you won't be towing a very expensive carbonfibre sailplane around with a £500 rotter bought fifteenth-hand off a farmer in Ye Sunke Drunke Monke.I am very disappointed to note that you have not engineered your new model to take into account the significant glider towing market. I fear you have made an error which has the potential to cost you up to a dozen secondhand sales over the next 20 years.
Yours, angrily...….
biggles330d said:
AngryPartsBloke said:
RoverP6B said:
The fact is that I did stuff with Land Rovers in the 70s that *nothing* JLR makes can do now. Like hauling fifteen-ton glider winches out of holes in the ground on wet, boggy airfields. Many others have done other significantly demanding things with their Land Rovers, including dropping them out of the back of aeroplanes. Try doing either of those with a monocoque that was only ever developed to tow a maximum 3500kg, and see how many ripples or degrees of bend you put in the floorpan and how many spot welds you rip open.
3500kg is a legal limit, not a maximum. It can and will tow a lot more, just like the Discovery 5 and every other land rover moder or not. https://media.landrover.com/news/2017/09/land-rove...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=23&...
595Heaven said:
Don’t forget one of those monocoque bodied independently suspended SUVs can do that as well 
Some very 'creative' cutting between camera angles there... the suggestion that a 2.0 diesel small SUV got a hundred tons of train moving from a standstill is a blatant, transparent lie. Once on the move, the low rolling resistance means you don't need much power to maintain a low speed like that, but NO WAY did that start the train as quickly as depicted without a shunter giving it a shove from behind... and not even rusty rails like that will provide meaningful grip for the tyres, so putting down the full torque (300lbft or just under?) of the mighty Ingenium without wheelspin will be nigh impossible.To quote my late father, who trained as a botanist and zoologist, spent the war as a tank instructor, including training radio operators (some of them for SOE), then at Barr & Stroud in Glasgow designed the optics for the UK's first nuclear submarines, then set up and ran the library of the fledgling University of Dundee, "believe nothing of what you hear, only half of what you see, and even then, be prepared to find that you have been misled".
That video is a clear example thereof. At first glance, it looks brilliant. Masterful marketing... but anyone with any knowledge of railways, especially neglected ones with rusty rails and historic rolling stock on plain bearings like that, can tell you that the Land Rover did not start that train unassisted. At no point do we see a zoomed-out view in which the rear of the train can be seen at the moment the Disco moves off. The casual viewer will be deceived by the video editor's sleight of hand, but I am not...
Edited by RoverP6B on Wednesday 8th July 12:48
RoverP6B said:
the suggestion that a 2.0 diesel small SUV got a hundred tons of train moving from a standstill is a blatant, transparent lie. Once on the move, the low rolling resistance means you don't need much power to maintain a low speed like that, but NO WAY did that start the train as quickly as depicted without a shunter giving it a shove from behind... and not even rusty rails like that will provide meaningful grip for the tyres, so putting down the full torque (300lbft or just under?) of the mighty Ingenium without wheelspin will be nigh impossible.
One day, perhaps you'll will actually use your own brain to think about something, or maybe even use "Google" to help you before posting total drivel?Have a think about the physics, ignore your own bias and bigotry, just think about the physics, it's actually rather simple. Here's a handy video that explains why it's not just perfectly possible, but actually trivially easy for a heavy, 4x4 to "pull a train"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Au3U72CX74I
Max_Torque said:
RoverP6B said:
the suggestion that a 2.0 diesel small SUV got a hundred tons of train moving from a standstill is a blatant, transparent lie. Once on the move, the low rolling resistance means you don't need much power to maintain a low speed like that, but NO WAY did that start the train as quickly as depicted without a shunter giving it a shove from behind... and not even rusty rails like that will provide meaningful grip for the tyres, so putting down the full torque (300lbft or just under?) of the mighty Ingenium without wheelspin will be nigh impossible.
One day, perhaps you'll will actually use your own brain to think about something, or maybe even use "Google" to help you before posting total drivel?Have a think about the physics, ignore your own bias and bigotry, just think about the physics, it's actually rather simple. Here's a handy video that explains why it's not just perfectly possible, but actually trivially easy for a heavy, 4x4 to "pull a train"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Au3U72CX74I
travisc said:
Going back to the Grenadier for a second I think JLRs plan was Old Defender -> new Defender. What we seem to have ended up with (excluding badge names) is discovery -> New Defender ; Old Defender -> Grenadier. I can see exactly why JLR would have sued over this, it’s just a pity they couldn’t have built a ‘Grenadier’ 10 years ago instead of heritage run offs and no real development before now.
For all the rest of this forum probably thinks they know what they are doing, I can’t imagine Jeep ever allowing a pretender to take their Halo Vehicle crown but then they spend a fortune developing replacements that were more and more comfortable but looked similar (ish). It’s as if Jeep didn’t build the JK or JL but went straight from the TJ to the current Cherokee put a boxier body on it and called it the New Wrangler.
That being said I think the new defender as a vehicle looks unique; the hard top might just drop the price down a bit and tbh having two new defender style vehicles is hardly a bad thing. I just wonder how many sales it will take from Discovery but I’m presuming that will be updated also. The problem is if the Grenadier ends up being super comfy with a nice engine and decent interior it might be closer to the the new defender than they hoped. I guess we need to see the interior and the finished vehicle. I’m guessing JLR don’t care about the commercial sector although any sale is obviously a bonus but they don’t want middle class mountain biking families to decide there is another lifestyle vehicle to theirs. I’d be interested to see if the Hard Top ends up as the vehicle you see in car parks at the foot of trails particularly as it will have three seats? I’m presuming it cant have two seat rows to be “commercial”
Edit - looks like the grenadier might now be Le Grenadier. Panic over JLR as you were
I think there is a very logical argument that if instead of just rebranding the Land Rover as a Defender and actually redoing it from scratch like the Landwind Pomegranite Tributo back in the 80s then things may have been very different but by 2015 it certainly made no sense. Even if they had then there would still be every chance that the consumer demands of the 21st century would have delivered the same end product in 2020 that we are getting. For all the rest of this forum probably thinks they know what they are doing, I can’t imagine Jeep ever allowing a pretender to take their Halo Vehicle crown but then they spend a fortune developing replacements that were more and more comfortable but looked similar (ish). It’s as if Jeep didn’t build the JK or JL but went straight from the TJ to the current Cherokee put a boxier body on it and called it the New Wrangler.
That being said I think the new defender as a vehicle looks unique; the hard top might just drop the price down a bit and tbh having two new defender style vehicles is hardly a bad thing. I just wonder how many sales it will take from Discovery but I’m presuming that will be updated also. The problem is if the Grenadier ends up being super comfy with a nice engine and decent interior it might be closer to the the new defender than they hoped. I guess we need to see the interior and the finished vehicle. I’m guessing JLR don’t care about the commercial sector although any sale is obviously a bonus but they don’t want middle class mountain biking families to decide there is another lifestyle vehicle to theirs. I’d be interested to see if the Hard Top ends up as the vehicle you see in car parks at the foot of trails particularly as it will have three seats? I’m presuming it cant have two seat rows to be “commercial”
Edit - looks like the grenadier might now be Le Grenadier. Panic over JLR as you were
Ultimately this is about a company moving forward strongly with the times but there being a residual old client base that would prefer not to. Unfortunately it’s not a client base that is all that commercially viable for a premium car manufacturer.
If we look back to the end of the mini and the arrival of the new MINI we will see the same type of person up in arms but the new MINi has been a bit of a winner and despite our love of the original we know it wouldn’t have been commercial to keep trying to sell it.
I like the BINI (at least the original, not so keen on the more recent ones). I could never fit comfortably in one (with the seat pushed fully back, my kneecaps were hard up against the dash), but my wife did, and thought it handled extremely well (which as she was getting out of a Peugeot 205 and my BMW E30, I thought was praise indeed). The difference was that it wasn't even pretending to be the same sort of thing that the Issigonis car had been, it was explicitly marketed as a pricey style statement, with the boggo One starting IIRC at £9995 (in 2001!), the Cooper being more like £12-15k depending on spec, whereas Fiat managed a rather closer replication of spirit with the Nuova Cinquecento. Land Rover is trying to pretend that the Nude Offender is utilitarian and an off-road hero, when in reality it's much more at home in Soho than on Snowdon. Just look at the YouTube videos of the things making a complete pig's breakfast of a small dip that the live axle Jeep Wranglers were scampering through without any of the Land Rover's lurching, bobbing or wobbling.
LimaDelta said:
Max_Torque said:
RoverP6B said:
the suggestion that a 2.0 diesel small SUV got a hundred tons of train moving from a standstill is a blatant, transparent lie. Once on the move, the low rolling resistance means you don't need much power to maintain a low speed like that, but NO WAY did that start the train as quickly as depicted without a shunter giving it a shove from behind... and not even rusty rails like that will provide meaningful grip for the tyres, so putting down the full torque (300lbft or just under?) of the mighty Ingenium without wheelspin will be nigh impossible.
One day, perhaps you'll will actually use your own brain to think about something, or maybe even use "Google" to help you before posting total drivel?Have a think about the physics, ignore your own bias and bigotry, just think about the physics, it's actually rather simple. Here's a handy video that explains why it's not just perfectly possible, but actually trivially easy for a heavy, 4x4 to "pull a train"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Au3U72CX74I
RoverP6B said:
Modern mechanically-lubricated roller bearings, perfectly smooth railhead conditions and a grippy surface on which soles or tyres can find traction - yes, the car or the man will eventually get the thing rolling - but rusty railheads, plain bearings, car wheels sitting on the railhead with rail wheels reducing the weight on the driven wheels, 295ftlb (minus whatever cannot be put down without wheelspin) vs 110 tons or so, and the fairly rapid rate of acceleration seen, simply do not add up. It's a blatant lie by the marketing men.
Train expert now I see. So everything you don't want to be true is a lie, despite any evidence. Meanwhile everything you want to be true is, despite a lack of evidence.
RoverP6B said:
LimaDelta said:
Max_Torque said:
RoverP6B said:
the suggestion that a 2.0 diesel small SUV got a hundred tons of train moving from a standstill is a blatant, transparent lie. Once on the move, the low rolling resistance means you don't need much power to maintain a low speed like that, but NO WAY did that start the train as quickly as depicted without a shunter giving it a shove from behind... and not even rusty rails like that will provide meaningful grip for the tyres, so putting down the full torque (300lbft or just under?) of the mighty Ingenium without wheelspin will be nigh impossible.
One day, perhaps you'll will actually use your own brain to think about something, or maybe even use "Google" to help you before posting total drivel?Have a think about the physics, ignore your own bias and bigotry, just think about the physics, it's actually rather simple. Here's a handy video that explains why it's not just perfectly possible, but actually trivially easy for a heavy, 4x4 to "pull a train"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Au3U72CX74I
Seriously chap, have a word with yourself, it's ok to be wrong, to admit you didn't know something, hell even to admit that your ones bias clouded ones judgement, to listen to alternative suggestions, points of view and facts provided that demonstrate an opposing view to ones original perspective. That is to be human. To simply double, tripple down, to obfuscate further, to do ANYTHING excecpt say "hey i got that wrong, but thanks for explaining why", well that is frankly idiotic, or to let ones bigotry and bias undo the man..........
You've decided they were lying (that a discovry can't pull a train) because it suits your bigotry. You could be the driver of the Disco towing the train and you would still be unable to admit to yourself that it is your own bias that is wrong. Nothing i can say will change what you think. However, every single other person reading this thread can read what i wrote, can go on google, or you-tube, and can learn about the physics and understand that it is perfectly possible for a 4x4 to pull a very heavy train at slow speed on a level track. They will then tend will look at you and think "idiot".
RoverP6B said:
I like the BINI (at least the original, not so keen on the more recent ones). I could never fit comfortably in one (with the seat pushed fully back, my kneecaps were hard up against the dash), but my wife did, and thought it handled extremely well (which as she was getting out of a Peugeot 205 and my BMW E30, I thought was praise indeed). The difference was that it wasn't even pretending to be the same sort of thing that the Issigonis car had been, it was explicitly marketed as a pricey style statement, with the boggo One starting IIRC at £9995 (in 2001!), the Cooper being more like £12-15k depending on spec, whereas Fiat managed a rather closer replication of spirit with the Nuova Cinquecento. Land Rover is trying to pretend that the Nude Offender is utilitarian and an off-road hero, when in reality it's much more at home in Soho than on Snowdon. Just look at the YouTube videos of the things making a complete pig's breakfast of a small dip that the live axle Jeep Wranglers were scampering through without any of the Land Rover's lurching, bobbing or wobbling.
Personally I don't see all that much difference between the MIni/MINI and the old/new Defenders in terms of their changed purpose and image. You're right that the MINI was explicitly sold as a fashionable, premium small car. The same pretty much went for the old Mini in the 1990s (from 1992 it wasn't possible to buy a basic 998cc Mini. They were all 1275s in either Cooper or various luxury/special edition flavours). The MINI leant - and still leans - really heavily on the heritage, 'brand DNA' and cute factor of the original. That's why it can be sold as a premium product rather than just another competent FWD hatch.
The Defender follows almost exactly the same life cycle - utilitarian product, beloved by many, gains cultural status far beyond its original purpose, stays in production for too long while losing virtually all its original market to superior competition, gets re-vamped as a fashion accessory selling on its own uniqueness and heritage rather than objective reasons, then gets comprehensively updated by an entirely new modern interpretation which half the fan-base of the original loathe. Let's see if the Defender can complete the set by, like the MINI, selling far better than the original and bringing swathes of new customers to the marque that the old one would never have attracted.
I'm really not convinced by the bit that I've bolded. Leaving aside the tedious name-calling, I haven't seen any current Defender advertising that even tries to show it as an agricultural, industrial or commercial utility vehicle. I haven't seen any depicted towing livestock trailers, carrying engineers to remote power lines, launching fishing boats, ferrying aid workers to African deserts, helping an Australian cattle rancher build a new fence or any of the other stuff that you might expect if it was being sold as a "utilitarian and an off-road hero". The launch advert showed a Defender carrying someone home (across rugged terrain) from a rock-climbing adventure. Most of the publicity pics seem to show it being driven by prosperous-looking middle-class families going camping, kayaking. mountain biking or caravaning. Yes, the adverts still push the car's off-road capabilities but then it is undeniably a very capable off-road vehicle - just in a different way to the old generation.
In the same way that the MINI was a completely different take on the 'small fun-to-drive family car' than the 1959 version.
As for the whole Disco-pulling-a-train thing - if it's so unlikely, do you also believe the lighter, less powerful, less torquey, less sophisticated Discovery Series I pulled a 120-ton train of Mk1 carriages as a stunt for its own launch?
Edited by 2xChevrons on Wednesday 8th July 14:34
DonkeyApple said:
I think there is a very logical argument that if instead of just rebranding the Land Rover as a Defender and actually redoing it from scratch like the Landwind Pomegranite Tributo back in the 80s then things may have been very different but by 2015 it certainly made no sense. Even if they had then there would still be every chance that the consumer demands of the 21st century would have delivered the same end product in 2020 that we are getting.
Ultimately this is about a company moving forward strongly with the times but there being a residual old client base that would prefer not to. Unfortunately it’s not a client base that is all that commercially viable for a premium car manufacturer.
If we look back to the end of the mini and the arrival of the new MINI we will see the same type of person up in arms but the new MINi has been a bit of a winner and despite our love of the original we know it wouldn’t have been commercial to keep trying to sell it.
Yes as was said above somewhere because they left it so long it ended up looking so different without the “bridging model” which is what I meant about the Jeep Wrangler. Ultimately this is about a company moving forward strongly with the times but there being a residual old client base that would prefer not to. Unfortunately it’s not a client base that is all that commercially viable for a premium car manufacturer.
If we look back to the end of the mini and the arrival of the new MINI we will see the same type of person up in arms but the new MINi has been a bit of a winner and despite our love of the original we know it wouldn’t have been commercial to keep trying to sell it.
Not that that makes it bad it just makes it far more of a change from the old one. As I said I suspect Jeep spent a fortune on updating the wrangler but then they’d the benefit of a country that wanted to buy it in the numbers that uk buyers wouldn’t have.
Also I think Jeep needed to keep selling the Wrangler as a halo vehicle to push the rest of the range so spent the money on it (which is easier to do if you are looking at a large order book btw JLR looked upon the old Defender differently and if anything was “halo” in that brand it was possibly the Range Rover
RoverP6B said:
Land Rover is trying to pretend that the Nude Offender is utilitarian and an off-road hero, when in reality it's much more at home in Soho than on Snowdon. Just look at the YouTube videos of the things making a complete pig's breakfast of a small dip that the live axle Jeep Wranglers were scampering through without any of the Land Rover's lurching, bobbing or wobbling.
In 99% of terrain you are ever likely to encounter, I’ll make a decent wager (from my own experience of driving across the same bits of ground in Series LRs, 90s, Defenders, Discoveries I & 3 & 4, and RRs of every generation) that the Defender will be a more pleasant device to traverse it in than a Wrangler.
Going back to the thread for a second
I’m genuinely interested in knowing - if this Hard Top had front two X rows of seats and then blank metal for the back 1/3 where the cargo / 3rd row was - would that count as any different for tax vat etc?
I e does commercial for tax reasons mean one row of seats + load bay or could it the hard top be almost like a double cab and still count as commercial
I’m genuinely interested in knowing - if this Hard Top had front two X rows of seats and then blank metal for the back 1/3 where the cargo / 3rd row was - would that count as any different for tax vat etc?
I e does commercial for tax reasons mean one row of seats + load bay or could it the hard top be almost like a double cab and still count as commercial
travisc said:
Going back to the thread for a second
I’m genuinely interested in knowing - if this Hard Top had front two X rows of seats and then blank metal for the back 1/3 where the cargo / 3rd row was - would that count as any different for tax vat etc?
I e does commercial for tax reasons mean one row of seats + load bay or could it the hard top be almost like a double cab and still count as commercial
That was a question I asked at my dealers and seems apparently not making one, which was disappointing....I’m genuinely interested in knowing - if this Hard Top had front two X rows of seats and then blank metal for the back 1/3 where the cargo / 3rd row was - would that count as any different for tax vat etc?
I e does commercial for tax reasons mean one row of seats + load bay or could it the hard top be almost like a double cab and still count as commercial
My D4 due for replacement so I ordered one with windows anyway, despite the obvious shortcomings in airdrop durability....
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