Thread: Land Rover Defender Crushed By Feds........

Originally Posted by voltron

I must have missed something. Did he say that Defender was a Decepticon or something. He said it was dangerous so that's the only thing i can think of.

Sorry I didn't bother to watch the video.

What I know however is that some years ago the USA bought in requirements for a level of rollover protection that the Defender doesn't meet. For a few years Land Rover got around this by fitting external rolllover protection to the NA spec Defenders.

The USA does allow importation of vehicles that are older than 25 years, so quite a few would import late model Defenders, and falsify identification to make out they were >25 yo. That was what lead to the crackdown and the public demonstration of said crackdown.

So in respect of the vehicle safety requirements ................

I am lead to believe that requirement is also why Nissan don't sell Patrols in the USA, but I stand to be corrected.

I certainly am concerned about the poor roll over protection offered by the Defender body structure and I don't dismiss it lightly.

Originally Posted by garrycol

This has been shown on here many, many, many times - vehicle was not crushed because it was unsafe but because it was rebirthed as vehicle that was different to that presented.

I think you left out a few many's.

G'day folks.
As Davehoos says, there is more to it than no airbags.
There has been a growing business in 'Improved' LR products entering the USA.
Basically, old chassis with new bodies, and all mod cons.
I've seen Puma bodies on RR chassis in an (unsuccessful) atempt to skirt the 25yr rule.
The process of importing a LR can be fraught. Research I have done shows many Perentie chassis to be NOS upgraded to Perentie spec. They would probably get crushed as their #is inconsistent with the vehicle.
Proceed with caution.

Originally Posted by Barefoot Dave

G'day folks.
As Davehoos says, there is more to it than no airbags.
There has been a growing business in 'Improved' LR products entering the USA.
Basically, old chassis with new bodies, and all mod cons.
I've seen Puma bodies on RR chassis in an (unsuccessful) atempt to skirt the 25yr rule.
The process of importing a LR can be fraught. Research I have done shows many Perentie chassis to be NOS upgraded to Perentie spec. They would probably get crushed as their #is inconsistent with the vehicle.
Proceed with caution.

Exactly! It is not crushed because of safety issues, it is VIN fraud. Someone swapped an importable age car ID number onto an NON importable car and got caught.