Thread: Disappointed in the D5 / waiting for the Defender

...or a disappointment fiesta!

Originally Posted by Tombie

What a ****ing whinge fest this thread is!

Your not wrong,back when I was a boy Land Rover were broke with only two vehicles,the 110 and Range Rover.Now they are profitable,have a large range of vehicles that are selling well in every market and because of that they have the confidence and capital to go forward with the new Defender.But everyone wants to whinge. Pat

Back when i was a boy they were considered the King of off roaders, and they were.

Now, they arent considered off roaders, and they arent.

Disappointed in the Velar... "Never before has form upstaged function to such an extent on the very car whose whole birthright is based on the precise opposite philosophy." Daily Mail

Originally Posted by rammypluge

Back when i was a boy they were considered the King of off roaders, and they were.

Now, they arent considered off roaders, and they arent.

What makes you say that they aren't considered offroaders? Numerous reports and opinions state the opposite. This thread is the only thing so far that I've seen bashing the new lineup... I think critics would be quite surprised if given the the opportunity to go "offroading"

Originally Posted by rammypluge

Back when i was a boy they were considered the King of off roaders, and they were.

Now, they arent considered off roaders, and they arent.

Says who? Rivet counters?

They’re more capable than Defenders, they’re more capable than all that preceded them..

If they don’t ‘tickle your pickle’ then that’s fine... but it doesn’t make them no good offroad, nor less useful. They are in fact on many, many fronts more capable...

They’ll offroad, they can fit urban high rise parking, they handle fantastic on AND off the road, quiet, sealed, and can be loaded much more easily than a Defender through the rear door...

Slab sided as the Defender is, cargo is limited to a bit under door width, leaves gaps on the sides where wheel boxes, curves to windows etc are eat up useable space.

And where a slab side may be an advantage it’s also a disadvantage - the top sticks out as much as the bottom! So you scrape branches that may be missed by others! (There’s always a positive for each)

The only thing lacking is a Pick Up / Tray in the current line up. The Defender replacement will likely cross that off.



Let’s get ****ing real here....

Nobody is staring at a 32cm CRT tv, we’ve grown far beyond that.
Nobody is begging for manual steering, no AC, Ply tyres (mainstream not resto)
Nobody is looking to return to the roots of automotive industry with Points, Condensers and the like.

And the vehicles of the day were “King” only because the others were worse...

I had a recent opportunity to drive a XY GTHO again... my memories were of a sweet handling, hard going, great riding sedan. Reality: Poor handling, rough to drive, poor brakes, cumbersome!! (Great fun though)

Don’t let nostalgia temper progress...

These new generation vehicles will happily Rove, and won’t destroy the occupants whilst doing so.

The current range of Land Rovers are undoubtedly advanced, stylish and capable within their design remit. They are spectacular machines. If I were in the market for an SUV which I would use occasionally to go off road and I could afford $80-$150K + price tags, I'd be interested. However that's not the Land Rover which suits my purposes. Which is why I drive a Defender.

If Land Rover had expanded their line-up in both directions, with a clear commitment to work vehicles as well as SUV's, we'd all be raving... maybe this is what the new line up of Defender models will be, but until that happens there is obviously going to be critique of the priority in developing so many new SUV models at the expense of the work vehicle sector that the Defender has struggled to keep up with over many years.

Articles such as this one below articulate the view that some us share. Disappointment in Land Rovers priorities and focus on urban luxury vehicles, over pragmatic work vehicles such as Defender. It's directly related to the OP's post.

The great photos of all Land Rover models in the article clearly illustrates the homogeneity and SUV priorities of Land Rover over the past few years:

Why are Land Rover'''s all starting to look the same? | DriveTribe

It’s a bit chicken and egg...

The big dollar units generate the revenue that enables the development of the next generation of Work vehicle...

In a market flooded by Dual Cabs, Light trucks, Tray backs etc there is no priority for obvious reasons...

Up until the announcement the Defender was ceasing production very few people cared, sales were low, overheads high.

Nobody wanted the Iconic Defender to change either, so it was never going to be easy to just make updates as it went along.
Heck, the Power bulge and the dash was controversial enough at the time!