So it's the Range Stormer then!

I sent the details to my brother who informed me of the following

A few facts:

These pictures have appeared in all of the english press too, but this isn't a real photo - rather an artists impression based on 'teaser' shots displayed at one of the international motor shows earlier this year. Whether it's been 'accidentally' leaked to the press or not is difficult to say.

When the motorshow teaser was revealed, Mr. Range Rover said that it wasn't a picture of the new model, but an exercise in how design language can still be applied to a vehicle of very different proportions. I imagine it's pretty close to the finished product.

The name 'Stormer' is one of three names registered by the company, including Range Stormer, Range Sport and Range Rover Sport (I think). Which brings me to my next point... it's gonna be a Rangie anyway, so why the hell do Landie groups care? Don't you all have enough to worry about with the forthcoming Defender replacements?

Post that on your newsgroup and smoke it!

Check out these links to 4car.com for more details.

?lnk=211&id=6325

Disclaimer - Please note the comment about it being a Rangie and not a Landie is the misguided opinion of my little brother and not myself, before I get a flaming.

At the school my kids go to there is a mum who drives her Landcruiser all of a quarter of a mile to the school. When ever I get the chance to take the kids to school she is always there dropping off her kids. There is a great increase in the number of fat kids about isn't there, I don't know how parents can do it to their kids. My 15 year old niece gets a lift 1 1\2 miles to school every day, I'd bloody make her walk!

Or use the spare processor power on a few linux servers. :-)

5488 units completed as of this morning.

In article , "Martin (Wirral, UK)" writes

Simple: the Land Rover business was built on one small-but-profitable market and one very good concept. We'd quite like them to go on doing what they've done so well for so many years.

If they continue to head for the lower end of the luxury car market, they'll be joining a large number of bigger, semi-profitable companies all of whom have more experience and who are competing aggressively for the same space. There's massive over supply in the European car market, and sales are stagnant.

It's not a sensible move, unless the Land Rover offering is really brilliant. The fact that they don't have experience in this market would suggest that they won't succeed commercially, and that could well affect their core business if they throw good money after bad. A high-end product such as the SE Vogue is a *very* different proposition to the volume business they appear to be going after.

Not in the same way. Defender = core business.

Always do. It's what ageing 2.5TDs are for.

Regards,

Simonm.

No Landcruiser Amazons and I had a good look this morning and I am the only one with a 4x4 of any sort. I'd like to update the list above as there were

3 Chryslers, 2 Toyota previas, 5 Renaults - scenic and espace, a transit mini bus, and an assorted collection of various mass production cars with absolutely no character.

I wish I did. I live in Leicester and within the city limits.

So far, you're making sense.

I think this could be the make-or-break item. It seems that the Defender has a lot of problems with meeting various safety regs, both passenger protection and otherwise. It's not soft enough to be a car, and not big enough to be a truck.

Discovery has some of the same problems.

Maybe these fringe luxury developments are also testing ideas that will go into the Defender replacement?

But their job is to make money for their shareholders. They don't make a profit on Defender (or they didn't until last year). They make the largest profit on Range Rover, then Discovery / Freelander. So it doesn't make financial sense to focus on the Defender end of the market.

Also, they're not joining the low-end luxury market. They're virtually leading it already, with Range Rover. Don't worry about whether Land Rover can sell luxury cars, because they invented the fastest developing part of the luxury market (toff roaders) single handed.

But they've done well with Freelander, which was also a new commercial venture for them. And remember this is a baby RaRo - still a £35K+ vehicle. They're after the Cayenne / bottom-end X5 market, NOT the high volume Rav4 market which they address with the Freelander.

Not any more it's not! Apart from Range Rover it's their least-selling model by units, and it's also not very profitable! I don't think Land Rover are the company a lot of people seem to think they are. They're after making money, not manufacturing Tonka Toys (and I mean that in a complimentary sense) to keep us nerds happy. I don't want to be rude but you need to get with the times.

I can see you're all going to hate this response, but I'm afraid it's the truth.

David

Ignore this paragraph, I re-read the original post and realised I'd mis-read it :)

the fastest developing part of the luxury market (toff roaders)

Bill for new keyboard to David French. Hadn't heard that one before. Must get out more.

'creatives'

Now that dave has planted the seed and unleashed a song thats taken 20 years to get out of my head akin to the "I've got a song that'll get on yer nerves" I'd just like to say,

Way down deep in the middle of the jungle there is a new drink and they call it Um Bongo Um Bongo , Um Bongo they drink it in the Congo...

Right ...get that out of your head ;-)

But then again it worked...has the song lasted longer than the drink?

Lee D

-- ________________________________

Just a little hobby site about Landies :-) ________________________________

That was true when Land Rover was Land Rover Ltd, but now they are part of Ford and becoming increasingly integrated into Ford's "posh car" division what makes and does not make noney is a paper excercise, its more to do with bleeding the brand image for every penny its worth, and that could easily go wrong - as said above, BMW, Mercedes and practically all the far-eastern makers are far better at that market than Land Rover.

Thats only partially true - until the demise of the RR Classic the RR was little changed from the original - which had a hoseable interior and was used by farmers to patrol their land, collect orphaned lambs, take calves for weaning etc etc, i.e. not-very-clean things. The original was not at all posh, but practical on the farm and could be parked outside the Albert Hall and not look out of place - a very neat trick. With the demise of the Classic that idea, though perhaps not regularly tried in the latter years, has faded away - the vehicle has lost is essence, so to speak, and become just another luxury 4x4. Others are much better at playing that game. The "workhorse you can take to the opera" crown is now held by the 110 CSW I'd venture to suggest.

They've done well, but they havn't taken the world by storm - Freelander does well in Europe, not so well elsewhere. Discovery was their first attempt to break into an evolving niche market, in response to the Shogun, and it did pretty well, not least because it was just a re-styled RRC to all intents and purposes, and carried over quite a lot of the original "ethos" IMO. Freelander was an attempt to break into a niche market established by others, and is doing pretty well, but it can only follow the market, not dictate it like RRC did, and following a market is dangerous territory as there is a big risk of others "doing it first".

Defender is the icon that sells all the others, and indeed has been completely re-accepted by the farming (Dihatsu) and construction (Toyota Hi-Lux) in these parts - five years ago a Land Rover was quite rare round here,but now you trip over them all over the place. Land Rover can spend all they like on adverts (and their campaigns are completely naff, IMHO), but the battered old Series II pulling a huge trailer along says far more to Mr. Barrat Estate about his/her aspirations!

In your opinion, which while being perfectly valid, is only yours and others may well disagree.

Richard

That's what my wife says too, and you're both wrong ;)

On or around Thu, 11 Dec 2003 18:36:18 -0000, "David French" enlightened us thusly:

I'll stick with me old one then.

who's up for buying the V8 production line to ensure a continued supply of engines?

I'll throw in a fiver. How much do they want?

it Um Bongo, Um Bongo, Um Bongo, they drink it in the Congo...

Aaaargh! it's all coming back ;-)

Yes, it used to have that effect on me too. :-)

On or around Fri, 12 Dec 2003 09:34:38 -0000, "David French" enlightened us thusly:

dunno. only saw the bit that it was for sale.