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We were in East Africa for a while a couple of years ago.Quote:
Originally Posted by spudfan
Anything powered by a 200 or 300TDi,or older,is highly sort after,and the old RR Classic is worth huge money,no matter the condition.
But thats it for LR,you can guess which brand has taken over.
I guess Toyota is happy to dump its modern old stuff in places that can't afford not to buy them. Australia falls into that category. I can't see the Ineos product displacing Toyotas either. Too much had to be invested in incorporating current European vehicle standards. The Namibia stuff is marketing fluff to make privileged first-world folk think that they still have frontiers to conquer! The locals just need transport.
He mentions that "they" wanted to change the old Land Rover in 1971. This is not true. Instead of a series 111 the engineers had a completely different direction in mind. The shape was completely different. It could have passed as a Discovery prototype. British Leyland at the time were selling large numbers of the series as it was and did not want to spend money and change it. Some tinkering was done and we got the series 111. The money made from the Land Rover end of things went into the car side of things.
There is an article on this in a Land Rover magazine from some decades ago. I will try to find it and put it up here.
The big vehicle manufacturers,no matter the brand, are able to easily taylor their vehicles to suit a certain market.Quote:
Originally Posted by one_iota
They have the most resources,and probably know the vehicle market much better than the smaller brands.
Their aim is to sell vehicles to the masses,nothing else.
Africa is a good example,where the 70's are still sold new with the 6 cylinder diesel,which was dropped here around 15yrs ago.
I did see a couple with the 1VD,when we were there,they had been imported from Aus.
In fact,thinking of LR,things could get a bit rocky in the next few years,with all this push for EV's.
Most of their models do not suit that market.
In my opinion only,i think the Grenadier could struggle as well,time will tell.
Some might say at the expense of reliability.Quote:
Originally Posted by scarry
I agree that it's early days for the Grenadier, but INEOS is a massive company who are good at doing their homework. I won't speculate about the Grenadier's success, but I will hope for it.Quote:
Originally Posted by scarry
In 1971 Rover was in the process of integrating with Leyland. The "New Direction" was called RangeRover", which had just been introduced, and was a completely new direction for the company.Quote:
Originally Posted by spudfan
At the same time they recognised that there were a number of needed improvements in the Landrover. However, despite having agreed to the merger in the expectation that there would be the ability to do this sort of thing, all the money they had to develop new designs was taken up by the Rangerover. And even there it was several years before they were ableto put the four door into production.
All that was left for the Landrover was enough for the relatively minor changes to move to the Series 3 - basically an all synchro gearbox and a new instrument panel anda lot of detail changes. What they wanted to do was something like the Defender.
But by the time the Series 3 was introduced, the Landrover was the only profitable line in the entire Leyland Empire. And all the profit was needed to prop up the rest of the empire. Part of the issue would have been "why change it when we are selling all we can make?" And one of the selling points in a number of markets was backward compatibility.
I cant see Grenadier getting anywhere near this market.Quote:
Originally Posted by one_iota
This Secret Dealer Sells White Toyotas That Save The World | Top Gear - YouTube
Nice video mate. Yes I agree they have the market locked up for commercial. CheersQuote:
Originally Posted by scarry
Looks like the Grenadier could be the vehicle to visit out of the way places but will not be affordable to those who live there and could really do with a tough, basic 4x4 vehicle, which to my mind defeats the raison d'etre of the vehicle in the first place. Someone should reinvent the series Land Rover....
Toyota would probably say that they have already done that..Quote:
Originally Posted by spudfan
INEOS could maybe do it in reverse. If there is enough revenue generated by sales of the mainstream car they could possibly then build a no frills stripped down version for the "third world". They need to make money first.
Toyota's world revenue means they can afford to build the 7x cars we saw in that video from Gibraltar. They could make a per unit loss on those, as basic as they are, and still benefit from the goodwill generated, and play a long game where they will be perfectly placed when those countries want cars with frills. They have practically no competition there, and those cars are something anyone with a few spanners can fix.
The Grenadier hasn't even taken its first steps in a big world. I hope it doesn't give up.