Thread: Rumour 2.2

Originally Posted by camel_landy

Actually, the prime reason for Toyota's market dominance is probably more down to the apathy of British Leyland at the time...

M

Toyota got a look in because Landrovers were in short supply (Landrover was unable to meet demand for Landrovers until the mid seventies), and specifically the first Australian Army purchase of Landrovers took most of Australia's allocation in the 1959 - early sixties. this enabled Landcruisers (and others) to get a significant part of the market, despite their awful steering and only three gears and generally poor quality control (collapsing seats, leaking fuel tanks, failing alternators, carburetter problems etc). The larger engines helped mitigate these problems, although the lack of a diesel was a problem is some markets, even in Australia.

Once having a foothold in the market, the vast expansion of their car sales meant they were able to expoand their dealer network as Leyland's network collapsed along with the collapse of their car sales. Engine size was a relatively minor factor - look at how the proportion of cars with large engines has dropped (as the power weight ratio in cars has increased dramatically, while speed limits have dropped! When Landcruisers first appeared in Australia, the most popular car, the Holden, had less power than the smallest car on the market today, despite being nearly as large as the current Commodore, and NSW for example, had effectively no open road speed limit)

John

John

Originally Posted by camel_landy

Actually, the prime reason for Toyota's market dominance is probably more down to the apathy of British Leyland at the time...

M

Umm - we are talking about Australia here. Theiss started importing LandCruisers to Australia in 1958. BL formed in 1968.

The cruisers, despite being 3-speed back then, were an instant success due to the extra power they had in the hilly, high altitude conditions.

Series II and IIA 109" landies also developed a reputation for breaking axles, which was a further nail in the coffin.

The Nissan G60 also arrived in about 1960, and had the most powerful engine of all. The fact that it was only offered in 2-door SWB form limited its appeal in a country where LWB vehicles are preferred.

The last stats I saw, were that toyota sells 8 4x4s for any 1 sold by another manufacturer (in Australia).

This article is a bit biased but makes interesting reading:

It's a story Toyota loves to retell: a dozen of the first FJ25 models were imported to the Snowy Mountains hydro-electric project. Like all the other 4WDs, they broke down. "But it was Toyota's response to these problems that set the company apart from its rivals," sales and marketing executive vice-president Dave Buttner related this week. "Toyota flew out engineers from Japan who lived on-site to study and rectify the problems. They also flew out parts and sent the broken bits back to Japan -- to analyse them and fix the problems at the source."

Suitably impressed, construction magnate Sir Leslie Theiss began importing Toyotas in Queensland and NSW, and LandCruisers were increasingly used by resource companies and farmers opening up the bush. Half a million -- 10 per cent of all the LandCruisers ever made -- have been bought by Australians. Australia buys more LandCruisers than any market outside the Middle East.

Among full-size, dinky-di 4WDs the Toyota's only real rival is the Nissan Patrol. "But if you buy a Nissan it's taken as read you've had a bad year," was how one station owner explained it to me at the launch of the 200 Series LandCruiser in Alice Springs this week.

The attitude above is pretty representative of most cockies (farmers). For 95% of them its toyota or nothing.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au...010800,00.html

I think that the days of having a dedicated engine designed for the Defender are long gone.In days gone by we had an engine designed with the vehicles design premise in mind.Some came in for criticism from various sectors but they we usually designed with the off-road end of things in mind. This was sometimes at the expense of the on-road performance. For better or worse (or even lack of investment) Land Rover got good milage, time wise out of these. Look how long the 2.25 was fitted to to vehicles. The reason for this are many and no doubt if the engineers had their way it would have been changed long before it was. Look how many are still around today.
In Europe Land Rover are obliged to comply with the Euro emission laws. This means that engines have a very limited production life before they must comply with the next tranch of emission regulations. Land Rover therefore will not be able to design an engine designed with the Defender specifically in mind. The limited number of vehicles produced and the money needed to be recouped for the engine development would not justify these costs in this accountant run world. Land Rover will therefore source engines from other manufacturers. Some may be suitable for tweaking by the Land Rover engineers but we will never get the 100% Solihull unit as in days gone by.
The current unit was foistered on them by Ford. Despite some teething problems it seems to be a good unit in the vehicle. I like it but I know that it is only a matter of time before it is changed in order to comply with European laws.
In times gone by some places like South Africa had engines unique to that country. Sometimes this was for political reasons and sometimes it was better suited to that particular environment. The Perentie in your country had the Isuzu unit fitted. Maybe Tata will use this idea and fit different engines in different territories. It might not be practical to design a vehicle to accept different power units with differing operating characteristics. Tata may just bite the bullet and give up producing Euro compliant vehicles and just sell in territories that have less strict emissions laws. This could get the volumes up to compensate for the loss of the money generating county spec. vehicles sold in Europe.
I am sure Land Rover have been loaned engines by various manufacturers to try in the Defender. Other manufacturers will be eager to sell units to help recoup and reduce costs. The big decision now will be the next generation Defender and this will go in tandem with whatever power unit they have in mind. Tata could keep the Defender as it is but only if they gave up the Euro market and sold the Defender to a whole new market. Some could be territories that Land Rover left or lost while others will be new ground. Somehow I do not think that Tata had their head in the sand when they bought Land Rover. Personally I think that the Defender will survive much as it is now but with a less sophisticated power unit. The only trouble being that I will not be able to buy one as it will not be emissions compliant in Europe but it will be slogging around a whole new batch of markets. I think that Tata will give up the job of keeping the Defender Euro compliant and adapt it to sell in high volumes overseas.The vehicle could be hand built cheaply in India and fitted with an engine that would not meet European regulations but would be acceptable elsewhere.

Originally Posted by isuzurover

Umm - we are talking about Australia here. Theiss started importing LandCruisers to Australia in 1958. BL formed in 1968.

Agreed... But all they really did when BL was formed was to bring all of the rot together under one name!!

IMHO - BMC/Rover/BL/etc... never really got serious about exports until the mid 80s.

M

Originally Posted by camel_landy

.........
IMHO - BMC/Rover/BL/etc... never really got serious about exports until the mid 80s.

M

I'm afraid that is simply wrong as far as Rover is concerned. As a snapshot, in 1953, when Landrovers outnumbered all other Rover cars produced by 2:1, 76% of all Landrovers were exported. That cannot be construed as anything except being serious about exports.

For that matter, the Landrover was conceived in 1947 as primarily an export product, and the management bet the company on its export performance. More than half the prototypes were LHD, and the initial launch was outside the UK. As a further comment on the quoted article, according to the speaker at Cooma's 60th, Rover did in fact fly out experts to the Snowy Mountains to assess brake problems almost ten years before Theiss looked at Toyotas, and rapidly produced fixes - brakes were re-engineered several times in the first couple of years of Landrover production. At the time SMHEC had the largest fleet of Landrovers anywhere. (And ultimately their Landrover use exceeded their Landcruiser use over the life of the project by more than 100:1.

As a small company they simply did not have the resources to match Japan Inc., and when they attempted to gain these resources by merging with Leyland in 1967, they were used by Leyland as a cash cow, to the extent that Landrover was the only profitable product Leyland was making in 1974 (still mostly exported). And it was not until about then that Landrover production was able to meet demand.

John

Agreed, LR have always been serious about exports, that's why I didn't mention them in the list.

The rest of your bit was sort of the same point I was making... i.e. LandRover have always done an excellent job despite the efforts of the parent companies to drag them down... If you see what I mean.

M

If you look at the engine on the driver's side, towards the front there is a bracket attached to it. Stamped into this is a table that goes from 07 to 11.There are spaces for each month of each year to stamp when the engine was made. Clearly Ford do not envision this engine being produced past 2011. This could give Land Rover stocks for some time past 2011 but I'd say they will be looking for it's replacement to slot in when the Tdci is stopped.So 2012 seems a good bet for it's introduction.

IMHO Tata are aiming to be a truly global car maker and will most likely use India's low-cost labour coupled with outsourced, innovative componentry [i.e. engines, drive trains, electrics, etc] to produce cars compliant with EU, USA, Asia, Africa and Aust. Project Icon [2012 Defender] is probably just one of several projects Tata are pushing to raise their profile, sales and global reach. I won't be surprised if Tata adopt something similar in style to Audi's twin-turbo 1.4litre in the 2012 defender [i.e. small, light, powerful, economical]. I'll be about ready to trade in my '99 110 by 2012