Thread: 2016 'Defender'

In all seriousness , the current crop of 4wd wagons and utes all meet the general public perception of what a family 4wd should be.

If Land Rover want a decent slice of that market....which it has to be to be for JLR to stay in it...they need to be able to produce a more affordable...and no new Landrover really fits that description....vehicle which outright competes pricewise with all of the others.....then you will see something.

I know a lot of will disagree , but I know a lot cockies who have Toyotas...mostly utes....because there IS NOTHING ELSE anywhere near the price....nothing.

Most of these people are my age and grew up in Land Rovers and quite openly say if Land Rover had a hilux around the same price they would buy it tomorrow. None of them have bought a Land Rover product of any sort for 20 years because they are $20,000 dearer at basic levels....they can almost buy 2 Hiluxes for the price of one Land Rover that does the equivalent job.

That's not economics for the farmer. It's not for me either , that's why I currently own a Ford Ranger, which I bought brand new last year for $28,000.

please don't misconstrue this post as an anti Land Rover post , as I'm trying to illustrate where I see Land Rover should place the new Defender....maybe that's why it's taking so long to get it right.

Good points ramblingboy42.

What was surprising is LR stating the new Defender would sit between D4 and RRS, if that was the case then its going to be 100K here. I cant see why they would do that not with all the other Bling in between.

Originally Posted by Andrew86

The needs of customers have changed though, and so too have expectations of comfort, refinement and versatility. People expect cars to be a lot of things now. Rugged enough to be a work horse, comfortable enough for long trips with the family, powerful and fuel efficient, reliable etc.

To design the new Defender to meet just one of those needs (as was the case with the original) just wouldn't work today. It'll need to do a lot of things well if they're going to reach their 70,000 units/year target.

I don't think versatility takes away from the purity of the Defender name, as long as it can still do the important things as well as the original.

Spot on!

And where it comes to driver comfort and utilitarian "no footwells, hose it out interior, muddy boots and pants welcome inside" - yet still pleasing to the eye interiors.... One need not look further than the cab of so many modern trucks and earthmovers! These machines need to provide for the comfort and safety of the operator else workcare legal cases arise etc...

Originally Posted by MrLandy

Sounds like the current Defender to me. But I doubt the JLR design team see it. And certainly not the penny pinchers

To be absolutely clear, I love my Defender and I wouldn't swap it for anything else on the market today. I couldn't, with a straight face, recommend one to friends or family though given the quality of the competition these days. Not unless they had a soft spot for them.

I hope they treat the project to replace the Defender as an improvement program, rather than a ground-up rethink. If they can take everything we love about the car today and bring it up to modern standards, I don't think they'll be able to make enough of them.

Originally Posted by Andrew86

The needs of customers have changed though, and so too have expectations of comfort, refinement and versatility. People expect cars to be a lot of things now. Rugged enough to be a work horse, comfortable enough for long trips with the family, powerful and fuel efficient, reliable etc.

To design the new Defender to meet just one of those needs (as was the case with the original) just wouldn't work today. It'll need to do a lot of things well if they're going to reach their 70,000 units/year target.

I don't think versatility takes away from the purity of the Defender name, as long as it can still do the important things as well as the original.

My point was that the original Land Rover was engineered to fill a need ( Which was a collection of purposes.), not designed to be marketed to people with induced perceptions of purposes.

I am expecting the defender to start with a poverty pack for 60-65k to compete with the LC 70 workmate wagon, which in my mind is the obvious competitor in its various models.

If it got above 75k you'd throw in a few more $$ and just get a Disco surely?

Originally Posted by juddy

Good points ramblingboy42.

What was surprising is LR stating the new Defender would sit between D4 and RRS, if that was the case then its going to be 100K here. I cant see why they would do that not with all the other Bling in between.

Originally Posted by MrLandy

Hmm...I reckon a new philosophy - JLR glorified shopping trolley - is driving the new approach.

How about we start a new thread,the MrLandy whinging about the new defender being a hairdressing poof's car ,we could join the other 20 threads together to make one sooper dooper hairdressing poof's car thread . Pat

I'd like to appologise to all the hairdressing poof's for my previous post . Pat