Thread: What if.....

Honda have been in the doldrums for ten years,, bad decision.

We'd now be able to buy C5s rather than D5s.
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That would be a good idea

In fact Honda and land rover work together briefly. Honda showed land rover how to properly build a car and help them improve the quality control. I think this is end of 90s
Together they planned to produce a small SUV but at the end they split. I think land rover milk Honda too much and the Brits looked down upon the Japanese car manufacturers at that time.

Land rover produced freelander
And Honda come up with Honda CR-V that became a huge success

Build quality would have improved but in my eyes Honda have lost their way in the styling front over the years... Might be driving higher revving engines (not sure how well that would be in low range stuff) but more reliable. Probably wouldn’t have the great terrain systems though.....

Actually,probably not a bad thing.

The Japs have pretty good quality control,fit and finish,reliability,resale....

As for LR,over the years, they have sort of been umm,the opposite.....

Freelander outsold CRV in Europe.

Honda has the majority sharholding of Landrover in the first half of the 90s. The Disco 1 update was the result of this union - used Honda designed instruments and Honda designed interior - the main input was in the introduction of Jap quality control standards which took some time to flow right through - part of this was where appropriate passing the cost of warranty clams back to parts suppliers rather than LR meeting these costs.

Initial work on the Freelander was a combined effort with the same basic chassis and suspension for the Freelander and Honda CRV.

The P38 was designed under Honda's control but not sure how involved they were.

Honda was good for LR at the time but not much point these days.

Garry

I would have said Subaru, getting into bed with LR
- A Disco running a boxer engine would be... interesting. And super-reliable.

Or, Mitsubishi with their nicer appointments. GEN II GEN III engines - V6 especially - onward were pretty good IMHO, and all the Pajero needed was LR suspension to make it unbeatable.

- Get you there.... and back... comfortably reliably and economically. - Without a full house maintenance exercise afterwards.

At least the plastics would have been better and switch gear such as HVAC Fan-Speed would not be a 'consumable item'.
Headlamps would either be on OEM relays or built UP to the task.
NO oil leaks.
Drivetrain not life-limited like the BW transfer case of Classic & P38

My 2 cents worth.