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Thread: Land Rover is dead... Long live land rover!

  1. #1
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    Land Rover is dead... Long live land rover!

    I'll choose my words carefully here...

    With the release of this latest vehicle and the backtrack on producing a load carrying version (is that even possible with monocoque and gasbag suspension?), what I've long suspected in the leadup to L663 SUV has come to pass. Land Rover no longer build vehicles that are relevant to my individual needs or lifestyle, and maybe not relevant to anybody who needs a serious off road working vehicle. I will always love Land Rover heritage and my amazing 110 HCPU 'Hector', but I wont be buying another vehicle from them (unless a new 'Series IV' line emerges).

    I respect that from a commercial marketing perspective their rationale and current product line may be a shrewd business move, and that the world is now largely urbanised and populated by trendy, cashed up latte drinkers with a penchant for weekend extreme sports (or at least appearing on facebook to do so).

    The bit I dont get is how many of the beardy urbanistas that they target with their marketing can afford upwards of 70K for their cafe to cafe runabouts? I will spend upwards of that on my next vehicle. But it wont be a land rover SUV. G Wagen Professionals and Iveco Daly 4x4 are probably the two I like best right now.

    I guess the question I now have for the Land Rover brand enthusiast is which model will carry the brand identity forward now that the Land Rover is gone? I've never had a Discovery, but hear they're OK. I liked those boxy ones. So is the Disco or the Range Rover now the flagship of the land rover product range?

    Alan

  2. #2
    16PMark Guest
    I'll get the Popcorn..

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    Total waste of time and effort. I would have thought by now all the spleen venting, hand wringing and tears would have been done to death

    When are we ever going to get over all of this and move on.

    Rob

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    Quote Originally Posted by RobA View Post
    Total waste of time and effort. I would have thought by now all the spleen venting, hand wringing and tears would have been done to death

    When are we ever going to get over all of this and move on.

    Rob
    I don't think that was 'spleen venting, hand wringing and tears' just another summary of the change in Land Rover's direction and the final move away from their original market sector.

    Sounds like Alan has 'got over it' and has his next vehicle choice narrowed down.

    The new 'Defender' makes sense for them in that it needs to meet current market demands and make money for Tata. Making something for the purists won't make them money .......... although, they do manage to sell restored Series I's for some serious coin.

    I'm not in their target market but I'm still astounded by all the hype surrounding the new 'Defender' (has there actually been an independent test drive yet ?).


    Colin

    Colin
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    '65 Series IIa Dormobile
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    '76 SIII 88" (Isuzu C240)
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    Agreed, I put the new Defender in the same league as the Evoque and RRS , would not touch any of them with a barge pole . I'd rather drive a Great Wall than look like my interpretation of a total ******.

    If I did want a car like that I'd buy the Jag version , E-Pace rather than a LandRover wanna be.

    I'm not over it and will never move on.
    Last edited by goingbush; 15th November 2019 at 08:34 PM.

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    As the headstone says - “Land Rovers never die - they come back recycled”.

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    It might be worth taking a look at history. I think it is reasonable to consider the current "Landrover" company as the direct successor to the original Rover company.

    Starley and Suttton was the offshoot of a small sewing machine company that had "abandoned its roots" and switched to building bicycles in 1869. Starley and Sutton in 1885 introduced the "Rover Safety Bicycle" that was so successful that "Rover" remains the word for bicycle in several languages, and led to the company changing its name to "Rover".

    But by the early 1900s the market was becoming saturated for bicycles, and like some other bicycle companies (notably Morris), Rover "abandoned its roots", and started making motor cycles and cars. (Actually they continued bicycle manufacture alongside cars into the 1920s)

    Aiming at the mass market also targeted by Morris and Austin, but lacking their business acumen, Rover built a number of well designed and built but overpriced basic cars (an uncle of mine was driving one in the 1950s) until their banker called a stop in 1928, and put Spencer Wilks in charge (he had just been laid off by Rootes after their takeover of Hillman), and the company "abandoned its roots" giving up building basic cars, and started to build much more expensive cars aimed at the upper middle class urban dweller (sound familiar?). And saved the company.

    After WW2, the company had been successful in military work, but faced with government restrictions on the sort of car it had been building, and a government apparently determined to do its best to get rid of the "upper middle class", Rover "abandoned its roots" and started to build very basic utility workhorses. These were very successful, and despite attempts to keep its traditional (since 1928) type of car going, the Landrover became the mainstay of its business.

    In 1967, starving for capital (a perennial problem) they merged with Leyland, which might have worked - except Leyland saw this as the start of a campaign to own the whole British car industry - and we know how that ended!

    With Leyland's mismanagement, the Landrover was starved of support (it was the only profitable bit of the empire, and so had to support the rest of the whole sorry mess), and what money that was around was used to launch the Rangerover, which became a major success.

    By the late eighties, with the Rangerover now a high priced luxury car and Landrover facing severe competition, and the company changing hands every few months, the company "abandoned its roots", and spent money that could have gone into updating the Landrover on a new variant of the original Rangerover aimed at the upper middle class urban dweller, and referred to this as a "Discovery", and saved the company. (which has since spawned a number of variants and generally moved up market to fill the gap left by Rangerover as it has moved even further upmarket)

    The original Landrover continued through all this until recently, when the company "abandoned its roots" and, with a rather long gestation, replaced it with a new model aimed at the upper middle class urban dweller.
    John

    JDNSW
    1986 110 County 3.9 diesel
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    Very well said John.

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    Quote Originally Posted by NT5224 View Post
    I'll choose my words carefully here...

    With the release of this latest vehicle and the backtrack on producing a load carrying version (is that even possible with monocoque and gasbag suspension?), what I've long suspected in the leadup to L663 SUV has come to pass. Land Rover no longer build vehicles that are relevant to my individual needs or lifestyle, and maybe not relevant to anybody who needs a serious off road working vehicle. I will always love Land Rover heritage and my amazing 110 HCPU 'Hector', but I wont be buying another vehicle from them (unless a new 'Series IV' line emerges).

    I respect that from a commercial marketing perspective their rationale and current product line may be a shrewd business move, and that the world is now largely urbanised and populated by trendy, cashed up latte drinkers with a penchant for weekend extreme sports (or at least appearing on facebook to do so).

    The bit I dont get is how many of the beardy urbanistas that they target with their marketing can afford upwards of 70K for their cafe to cafe runabouts? I will spend upwards of that on my next vehicle. But it wont be a land rover SUV. G Wagen Professionals and Iveco Daly 4x4 are probably the two I like best right now.

    I guess the question I now have for the Land Rover brand enthusiast is which model will carry the brand identity forward now that the Land Rover is gone? I've never had a Discovery, but hear they're OK. I liked those boxy ones. So is the Disco or the Range Rover now the flagship of the land rover product range?

    Alan
    The new defender has been made factually tougher than the last just more pedestrian friendly and comfortable, it will be the brand pillar, that why it still exists, despite the old one that only sold 5k to public and 15k to fleet/business in its dying years.

    The old defender is dead, Long live the new one, would be a more fitting title.

    I still love the old defender for what it its, it just had it day from a new sales perspective and needed to be updated, future proofed and aimed at a market that's greater than 20k annual sales, watch its sales in the US now.

    You also mention 70k+, did you forget the 90, commercial, defender sport. I think there will be options within a few years for people will all sorts of budgets. From 50k-150k.

    Gwagon professional is not cheap @ 115k but good bit of kit. Better looking than the luxury version, but for me new defender beats it looks and function wise all things considered for my usage case.

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    There needs to be a dislike button.

    the new vehicle (which I refuse to call a Defender) is the definition of consumerism out of control. Sometimes I get sucked into looking at a thread with Defender in the title and end up with a sick feeling, Every time I see a picture of one I feel a little bile coming on, hope I never get to see one in the flesh . Doubt I will as I do live a good distance from a city or a JLR service centre and I'm not close to any urban hero destinations.

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