One question...

**JDNSW** · 18th December 2018, 07:00 PM

Perhaps worth pointing out that if we go back to when the first Landrover was introduced, it was produced with no thought of the military market - in fact, it could be considered as a "demilitarised" Jeep. And the British Army had no intention of getting "anything like that". They were well into the design and acqusition process for the 'perfect' military light utility vehicle - what surfaced as the Austin Champ. Rover had never been a supplier of military vehicles, although they had, like the rest of the British motor industry, been heavily involved in military production, notably aircraft parts and especially the first production Allied jet engines (passed to Rolls Royce in exchange for their tank engine business). Rover regarded their market as upper middle class urban buyers - sound familiar?

Despite this, within a few years, Rover was selling large numbers of Landrovers to the British Army, and continued to do so for decades after the Austin Champ had faded into history.

I can't say that history will repeat itself, just that this sort of prediction does not necessarily follow the obvious path.

**Homestar** · 18th December 2018, 07:10 PM

The Land Rovers of old weren’t made for selling to the high end of town but as a rugged, go anywhere, easy to fix vehicle, so adapted well to Military life. From where I sit, I don’t see any of those qualities with the current LR lineup sorry. All just personal opinion, but either way, time will tell.

**Pedro_The_Swift** · 18th December 2018, 07:14 PM

The problem with LR not tendering for "its " replacement was the requirement for the vehicles to run on UNLEADED....

**Summiitt** · 18th December 2018, 07:22 PM

There has been almost no talk of a ute for the new defenders, the commercial market doesn't seem to be a target for Landrover..My current 130 I'm afraid will be the last of 12 defenders I've bought new, 6 of them still in heavy duty forestry work..Im just praying that either the G commercial drops in price or ford release a `workmate` cab chassis F350!!

**RobA** · 18th December 2018, 08:10 PM

The answer is no. The life of type for defence equipment including fleet is normally in the region of 20 years or so. That is completely incompatible with normal commercial fleet evolution and development. There will always be evolutions during life of type but normally within defence parameters not WHS or commercial.

In this day and age of highly variable combat requirements but all requiring high levels of blast protection from IED et al there is no off the shelf product in the commercial fleet world that meets the need. This is why pretty much every defence force in the world has contracted specialists to build to that requirement. Quite frankly ABS, ESC and an airbag or two means jack compared to decent underbody blast deflection.

So the answer is, again, no not for Landrover or anyone else. It's now down to the specialist builders like BAE and here in Australia the range of vehicles coming under the Land 400 program

Rob

**Celtoid** · 28th December 2018, 02:31 PM

Land 400 vehicles will not tick the boxes Land 121 vehicles fill. There are going to be well in excess of 2000 G Wagon variants used by the ADF ….. we could not afford to buy that many specialist armored vehicles and I doubt the Land 400 vehicles could match the requirements of Land 121 Phase 3A & B.

Will G Wagons ever see a true combat zone or an area where insurgents are going to be extremely active? …. probably/hopefully not …. but there will always be a need for vehicles that are used in Australia for logistics and training. That's why they bought the Gs.

Chickens and eggs regarding LR not bidding in Land 121 ….. did they even have a product on the drawing table let alone classified as MOTS (Military Off-The-Shelf), which tends to pop up in the requirements a lot these days, that would come close to the mission system and support system specs?

**Zeros** · 28th December 2018, 10:11 PM

So there should be lots of ex army G’s for sale at some stage...will be interesting to see the prices.

**blackrangie** · 29th December 2018, 07:16 AM

Originally Posted by Homestar

The Land Rovers of old weren’t made for selling to the high end of town but as a rugged, go anywhere, easy to fix vehicle, so adapted well to Military life. From where I sit, I don’t see any of those qualities with the current LR lineup sorry. All just personal opinion, but either way, time will tell.

Nothing is easy to fix in the field in military anymore, its all very very high tech

**Jenx** · 4th January 2019, 04:38 PM

I also wouldn’t underestimate the effect that headlines like this one had on JLR’s thinking about the military market. SAS commander quits in Snatch Land Rover row | UK news | The Guardian

**Zeros** · 4th January 2019, 05:01 PM

Indeed! thanks for that. ...this issue of under-investment in armoured vehicles leading to deaths is astounding and horrifying.

I wonder if the new Defender will even be used as a police car / fire vehicle / work vehicle of any kind?

My question is what is it Defending? ...Hipster lifestyle? The Land Rover image?

Why call it a Defender at all? ...It was supposed to challenge Hilux according to Jerry McG, but no sign of a ute either... ...by the looks of the 'spy shots' there's nothing so far to set it apart from a Discovery 4 IMO.

...Why not just admit the era is over - drop the Defender name, cancel the D5 and be done with it - call the new one a Discovery 6.

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