Thread: The philosophical 2018 Land Rover Series VI / Defender / 'Icon'...

The objective is to make money and to place yourself in the right market with the right product to make that happen. However the new defender must make sense with the the other two market segments.

They can't keep making a car that sells only 1000 units a year in a market like Australia. It's gotta do a lot better.

Alloy unibody with EAS, front IFS, auto option, and TR with optional locking rear diff has to be the future Defender to do better and differentiate itself from a crowded utility market.

Originally Posted by MrLandy

If design philosophy were all about pragmatism and markets, then yes take a bow (if your sources are correct that is). However I encourage you CuppaBT to take the art route because great design requires that in equal part. ...fear not the alpha male mechanical pragmatism that dominates this forum and go down the path of shadow, subtlety, nuance and what might best be described by the Japanese concept of wabi sabi.

As far as Icons being made and not born, that is a discussion that can't be so easily shut down... And one thing is for certain, shutting down discussion does not an Icon make.

What I said stands MrLandie. I don't want or need to go down the art rout. You wouldn't have liked it anyway. Pat has finally told us what we needed to know, and what I've said all along is that the Defender replacement will be what LR need it to be. Pragmatism is not a crime but a virtue. The new Land Rover has to be designed within the parameters that are handed to it by law and the practicalities with which it must contend. There is no room for artistic consideration beyond superficial design. You should be content now that the end result will meet with your approval.

Very happy to agree to disagree with you cuppa. As I said I rate pragmatism and artistic input as equally important to great design. As far as whether I "should be content" with whatever LR come up with, I'll be my own judge of that thanks. Cheers

Too true and fair enough.

Originally Posted by MrLandy

I thought it wasn't an icon until it became one judged by the people? and hasn't Defender always had an Aluminium body shell?

Monocoque safety shell sounds great. So does all the physical construction conjecture, which is infact no more or less interesting or important than philosophical conjecture.

Enjoying the banter boys. On the edge of my seat with such revelations. Wow! more airbags and side intrusion beams! Rad!

Riveting even!

No Iconic shape Land Rover has ever had what one could consider a shell. What they have is a number of relatively flat panels, some of them aluminium, bolted together at the corners.

It is this lack of a safety shell that prevents sale of Defender in many markets (In spite of evidence from crash statistics)

The firewalls have never been aluminium* and the steel door frames have only had aluminium door skins, except for the Puma which now has steel door skins.

Diana

* In the 80" model there were a number of "aluminium firewalls" however these were steel frames with aluminium skins and conjecture exists about whether these were original manufacture or spare parts after the press dies for the firewall were no longer available.

"The new model [Defender] will transform the 4x4 from rugged workhorses to a 'family' of trendy beach-buggy style leisure vehicles." New generation of the Land Rover Defender 4x4 to be built in Slovakia | Daily Mail Online

dont believe everything you read and all that ...but it doesn't look good. Oh well, so much for the Defender, R.I.P rugged workhorse...at least it will probably have an airbag! Not the design philosophy I was hoping for.

Yep,so much for the defender,looks like you bronzed weather beaten real defender men with large members will have to drive off into the sunset for the last time and leave the world to us latte drinking small membered city metro sexuals in our tonka toy dune buggies,I hope the colors of the new pretender don't clash with my short shorts. Pat

I'm probably putting a spanner in the works here but I don't mind the look of the DC100. Do I think it's a good replacement for the defender? No. Is it where Land Rover will travel with the Defender? Probably. Will I buy one? No way. Would I up date my Series 3 109. Probably what would it be? Probably a Defender. My point is that unfortunately you can't stop things changing do we need to like it? No. Do we need to accept it? Unfortunately yes.

I would like to see the Defender still get made (maybe like the 40 Series 'Cruisers and VW Beetles were in Brazil), yes it's an icon. But so was a lot of other cars. Unfortunately we live in a materialistic society where we 'need' to upgrade our car every couple of years, because of the gadgets 'we' demand.

I'll end with this,
Land Rover better come up with a real cracker. I don't think I could imagine Queen Elizabeth II driving anything else.

Nathan.