2012 Defender Details released

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Originally Posted by jakeslouw

"hell I remember when a 2.25 naturally aspirated petrol 4 pot was all you really needed to get the job done. the same power that that donk used to produce can now be made from a 500cc 3 pot turbo diesel."

Hell I remember when 90km/h was really fast because we had no highways, but what's your point?

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I have a book in front of me ("Australia through the Windscreen" by William Hatfield) with the following quote "On a straight stretch of concrete past Ryde on the Great North Road, I proved for myself the maker's assertion that the job would do sixty [mph]. After that the needle was mostly below forty." Mind you, it does follow with "Less than twenty miles from the Sydney G.P.O. you can look off the road at country absolutely untouched since the coming of the white man." 1932. The car was a Hillman Minx of "10hp" (Wikipedia says 30bhp and 1185cc). He drove it around Australia in conditions that most would now regard as "off-road" nearly all the way. ("And the surfaced road ends about twenty miles out [of Toowoomba].") Had the steering strengthened en route, no breakdowns, 2wd.

2.25L pfffft :p

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Originally Posted by solmanic

In my opinion, Landrover's biggest mistake would be trying to target the recreational off-road market with the new Defender AT ALL.

IT NEEDS TO BE A COMMERCIAL VEHICLE.

They need to strip off all the "comfort pack" BS and focus on delivering a 4x4 utility - van - work platform. Small, cheap & reliable engine with best-in-class fuel economy and a drivetrain you could mate to a nuclear explosion without breaking. The ability to get from 0 to 100km/h only without holding up traffic - not at light speed - but gearing that gives it the ability to tow the moon out of its orbit if necessary.

However... the problem is that the last thing they want is guys in muddy site boots tramping into their clean, shiny dealerships and scoffing down free lattes. So I guess that idea's ****ed.

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Well said and I totally agree.:)

Is it possible the LR Dealers who really don't want blokes in work gear and muddy boots scoffing a meat pie as they crawl in, under and around the vehicles in the showrooms - is it possible that one day they'll realise these blokes are/have been wearing a pathway in all the Toyota Dealerships buying utes, traybacks and troopies - all work vehicles.

LR have the Range Rover,the new thing,Freelander,RRS,D4 they don't need another family/road type 4wd.The defender is what it is and it's never tried to be anything else,a solid vehicle for the outdoors,thats the way it should stay. Pat

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Originally Posted by jakeslouw

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And as mentioned, add a driver's and passenger's airbag, some interior roll-cage strength (side impact bars behind the sills, stronger steel pillars, door impact bars), and you'll satisfy most of the safety concerns.

Sorry, no convincing points there.

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It is unlikely that it is possible to fit airbags in the dash - there is simply not room. Side impact bars and sill bars are probably possible, as are stronger pillars - but they add weight and have to be separately structurally verified for each body type (and added weight means the attach points might need modification etc). All this would cost, and is almost certainly not justifiable on a platform that is the same dimensions as were set in 1954, when not only were Englishmen suffering from food shortages through the Depression and two world wars (and hence significantly smaller), but the idea of comfort in a utility vehicle had not arrived (for example, heaters were rarely fitted to Landrovers until they became compulsory in the 1970s - Holdens did not even have a heater as a factory option until about 1960). The Defender should have been widened to bring the body out to the outside of the flares when the 110 was designed. They thought about it but decided that the cost of tooling for the wider firewall could not be justified. (These are still being built on tooling that was mostly made for the Series 2!). And it needs more length in the passenger area as well, which really means a new design, not a modification of the existing one.

John

I think let's realise why Toyota makes a killing:

They provide a model with a standard basic body and chassis (Hilux) and then have a dozen optional models.

That's why they whack the market.

Why has the Defender become so one-dimensional? Because all it has done is reduce their potential target market. Nissan lost HUGE market share when they dropped the D22 Hardbody to concentrate on the F-Alpha platform: too upmarket, too posh, not enough choice.

At one stage, the Series 3 could be bought with a choice of FOUR engines:

2.25 [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Litre"]Litre - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia@@AMEPARAM@@/wiki/File:SI_base_unit.svg" class="image"><img alt="SI base unit.svg" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c8/SI_base_unit.svg/75px-SI_base_unit.svg.png"@@AMEPARAM@@commons/thumb/c/c8/SI_base_unit.svg/75px-SI_base_unit.svg.png[/ame] 73 hp (54 kW) [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I4_engine"]Inline-four engine - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia@@AMEPARAM@@/wiki/File:Ford-I4DOHC-engblock.jpeg" class="image"><img alt="" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/46/Ford-I4DOHC-engblock.jpeg/220px-Ford-I4DOHC-engblock.jpeg"@@AMEPARAM@@commons/thumb/4/46/Ford-I4DOHC-engblock.jpeg/220px-Ford-I4DOHC-engblock.jpeg[/ame] (Petrol)
2.25 [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Litre"]Litre - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia@@AMEPARAM@@/wiki/File:SI_base_unit.svg" class="image"><img alt="SI base unit.svg" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c8/SI_base_unit.svg/75px-SI_base_unit.svg.png"@@AMEPARAM@@commons/thumb/c/c8/SI_base_unit.svg/75px-SI_base_unit.svg.png[/ame] 62 hp (46 kW) [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I4_engine"]Inline-four engine - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia@@AMEPARAM@@/wiki/File:Ford-I4DOHC-engblock.jpeg" class="image"><img alt="" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/46/Ford-I4DOHC-engblock.jpeg/220px-Ford-I4DOHC-engblock.jpeg"@@AMEPARAM@@commons/thumb/4/46/Ford-I4DOHC-engblock.jpeg/220px-Ford-I4DOHC-engblock.jpeg[/ame] ([ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diesel_engine"]Diesel engine - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia@@AMEPARAM@@/wiki/File:Tatra018.jpg" class="image"><img alt="" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/99/Tatra018.jpg/220px-Tatra018.jpg"@@AMEPARAM@@commons/thumb/9/99/Tatra018.jpg/220px-Tatra018.jpg[/ame])
2.6 [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Litre"]Litre - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia@@AMEPARAM@@/wiki/File:SI_base_unit.svg" class="image"><img alt="SI base unit.svg" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c8/SI_base_unit.svg/75px-SI_base_unit.svg.png"@@AMEPARAM@@commons/thumb/c/c8/SI_base_unit.svg/75px-SI_base_unit.svg.png[/ame] 86 hp (64 kW) I6 (Petrol)
3.5 [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liter"]Litre - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia@@AMEPARAM@@/wiki/File:SI_base_unit.svg" class="image"><img alt="SI base unit.svg" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c8/SI_base_unit.svg/75px-SI_base_unit.svg.png"@@AMEPARAM@@commons/thumb/c/c8/SI_base_unit.svg/75px-SI_base_unit.svg.png[/ame] 91 hp (68 kW) [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V8"]V8 engine - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia@@AMEPARAM@@/wiki/File:Aero4G11.jpg" class="image"><img alt="" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/42/Aero4G11.jpg/220px-Aero4G11.jpg"@@AMEPARAM@@commons/thumb/4/42/Aero4G11.jpg/220px-Aero4G11.jpg[/ame] (Petrol)

(Source: wikipedia et al)

So why now one engine when even the Disco, RR and RR Sport have multiple options?

So I agree with Solmanic and Pat on this: LR are trying to redesign the Defender into something it never was and should never be.

But hey, we can go round and round on this argument. I still haven't seen a logical reason provided for why LR is being so short-sighted on this model. Blacknight has approached this from a purely European/local view, but the point is LR need a global vision of their target market if they want to sell big numbers.

Face it, the Toy LC pickup has taken over from the LR Defender as the vehicle of choice in Africa: there are literally hundreds of thousands of the things. Previously it was a Series haven. There are still Series Land Rovers behind literally every tree and khaya across Africa.

Trouble is LR don't give a stuff about Oz,as does Nissan.LR are intersted in America so the defender will be made to suit that market not ours and Nissan have made the Patrol for the UAE which is why it has a V8 petrol with no diesel,the middle east is the Patrols biggets market and Nissan made the vehicle they wanted.Stupid thing is the ute market in Oz is worth more than LR's total yearly production so the defender if made right could be sold by the thousands,I'm really keen to see the Amorak figures,my moneys on demand well exceeding supply. Pat

Perhaps we can wait to see the vehicle. While LR are interested in the North American market, there's a heap of Jeepers there and true off-road capacity is still valued. I doubt they want to canibalise their own sales of D4, F2, so pure "family" won't be the segment. And while 20,000 sales annually is not brilliant I don't imagine they want to lose them and start again in a different market sector with the same brand. So commercial users will need to be catered for. I'm seeing 78 series meets Amorack with some Wrangler on the side. Don't forget that even the Wrangler is offered as a no-frills commercial/military model.