Originally Posted by
DrytheRain
The specs are great, but now seeing it in full, from various angles and in actual colours, it’s a solid nope from me.
I just cannot get my head around Land Rover’s design philosophy. They had one of, if not the most iconic car design of all time in their history and they choose to replace it with a fussy, contrived pastiche. Admittedly the silver one with the smaller wheels and heavier black trim over the arch flares looks better, but there are so many styling cues that just don’t work for me.
The bonnet would have been so easy to solve, but they’ve chosen not to, the grille treatment seems almost wilfully awkward, the lower bumper with all that silver plastic trim looks too much like what manufacturers do to ‘toughen up’ the styling of crossovers. The black banding at the ends of the window pillars is straight off the new RAV4; no-one believes that the roof is ‘floating’ over glass. The proportions are very Hummer H3, with tall, slabby sides and a squat glasshouse. The C-pillar is cribbed from the FJ Cruiser and the tail lights, which I thought might look pretty cool, actually look terrible. What would have been wrong with placing those two larger ‘squircle’ tail lights toward the outer extremities of the rear quarters, much like the original Defenders? Then we wouldn’t need those black bands running down from the rear windows.
Look at the green 90 with the steel wheels; if I’d known nothing about the new Defender and someone showed me that image and told me it was a new Dacia SUV, I doubt I’d have blinked.
I took a look at the new Suzuki Jimny on Saturday and in my opinion, it’s more what the new Defender should be, just in 7/8ths scale. It still has its ladder frame and solid axles, but it has a retro-inspired, welded body that allows every square centimetre of interior volume to be utilised. It has a tough, stylish dash with tactile controls, the obligatory touchscreen sitting high in the centre, cool retro instruments, a nice steering wheel that adjusts for reach and rake, decent seats and more front seat space than a Defender. The doors shut with a solid thud and it has simple niceties like a gas strut to hold the rear door open. It may not have scored five stars in the NCAP tests, but it’s pretty solid, it has airbags and some of the new active safety tech. The more I think about it, it’s more like a modern SI. Now if they’d just offer a lwb model...
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