New Defender

This one?

Thanks Ian can I draw attention to this little gem of wisdom----- "Yes it's no longer excruciatingly crude at speed (with a top speed of

82mph, I use 'speed' as a relative term) but it will still take you longer to reach your destination and deliver you in a more frazzled state than almost any other car on sale". This is a journalistic technique known as anal oration though I dare Nige to describe it in his own inimitable style . For a first drive review I reckon the Beano would have turned it down as lacking in substance. Derek

If 82 is really the top speed, then that's just another reason for keeping the 200Tdi 110!!

It depends on how one feels about the driving position I suppose. Personaly I like it, I hate the "legs at 90' to the body" position of modern cars, so the Defender suits.

10 mins my oppo's Volvo going to pool matches is enough.... The trouble is journo's just don't seem to comprehend that not having a million horespower and not quite faster than the speed of light dosen't make it bad, just different. It's a tool for a job.

substance.http://www.beanotown.com/index.php?s=toonStuff&c=toonStuff-Content&id...>

They got the history mostly wrong as well. Rover simply couldn't get enough steel to return to full car production, so they needed something to make. Our Lord Wilkes used an old Jeep on the family estate in Anglesy and realised that with improvements (like having a chassis designed to last longer than 40 hours in use) there was a market for a purpose-built farm "utlity" vehicle as opposed to a military cast-off. And there was plenty of Birmabright knocking about, so...... They reckoned to make 2,000 vehicles initially as a stop gap until steel became more readily available in two or three years.

"The new engine has no more power than the five cylinder motor it replaces, but it now has so much torque, it actually has to be electronically restricted during extreme downhill descents off road to stop the car going so slowly the tyres start to lock." Now there speaks someone who knows about off-road driving. Not!

And that new dash......... it looks even worse in the flesh.

Richard

This one had me scratching my head a bit;

"but it now has so much torque, it actually has to be electronically restricted during extreme downhill descents off road to stop the car going so slowly the tyres start to lock."

So, I caught the first of the new Dick Strawbridge series last week. I also saw this in the BBC press release for the series:

'Dick arrives in his bio-diesel fuelled vehicle'

I recall from the previous series that he bought an old 90 and ran it on converted WVO. The Defender in this series appears to be a recent TD5. Unless he put a different engine in it - who is conning who?

Perhaps the BBC have to refer to it as a 'bio-diesel fuelled vehicle' because that is clearly better than 'planet destroying, criminally insane, gas-guzzling 4x4'

Oh, and about that budget... It looks Green but it smells Brown. There, got it off my chest now.

Pete

I expect it's running on the hot air his daft hippy wife spouts.

I don't watch it any more but I'll bet she's the crystal-waving jostick burning llama-cuddling type. How obviously reasonably smart blokes can saddle themselves with parasites like that I'll never know!

You have to have someone to tend a 'tache that size she must be an expert.

Derek

I thought he'd get a goat or something to deal with the 'tash, plus other duties, must be less trouble surely.

No! That's nothing like the article in the magazine this week.

If you read the actual article, it's because someone at Landrover has worked out the optimum descent speed and the new engine has so much engine braking that it would cause the vehicle to descend below optimum so breaking traction, possible sliding, so they put some electronic trickery on it to stop that happening.

That sounds like a re-iteration of the twaddle that came out with the Freelander launch and hill descent control. One question (well, ok two if in pedantic mode) demostrates it:

What are the ground conditions and what tyres are fitted?

Since a 200Tdi in a 110 CSW can stop it on a steep slope by truning the engine off, I rather think the "so much engine braking" bit is a tad dubious as well. I smell dogdy PR eminating from those Engineers at LR who think LR's are for towing caravans (which was most of them when I worked there) and have never seen what the vehicles can really do when driven by the demented.

Richard

PS And in case anyone is wondering (as LR make such a fuss about it), yes I have driven the "legendary" Gear Box Hill at Eastnor - up and own in an 88" Truck Cab, with three in the cab and four in the back, only I didin't realise it was supposed to be a BIg Deal as I didn't know what it was at the time - I was just going the quickest way to the butty van at the Nationals. I wasn't the only one.

As Richard pointed out, this can happen with any engine, as the traction breaking point depends entirely on the surface that you're on, it's got nothing to do with the engine having more "torque", it's pure pseudo-mechanical journalistic babble.

In article , BeamEnds writes

Is it just me, or does it seem to be a Landy with the good bits removed?

Regards,

Simonm.

Not just you! I can't help thinking the designers/Engineers working on it are from the "blue calipers are cool" crop of graduates. I can't wait to see that dash when the farm Collie has had a go at it!

Richard