New Defender

Also, where do you put the load? I can't see anyone squeezing more than a couple of bales of straw into the back. It looks fine as an updated Disco or Freelander, yes, but not as a four wheel drive van.

Imagine it green and it isn't too bad.

How many seats will it have? Because that looks like a two seater...

It's pretty obviously not designed to sell to armies or aid organisations or UN agencies.

The idea of a 'developing world, stripped out special' is an obvious non-starter as well. The old Defender factory is pretty obviously slated for relocation to India to become part of Tata Motors where the vehicle will be marketed as exactly that.

Me, I'm pricing a new chassis...

In message , Bob Hobden writes

The 2nd problem is that the current design has reached its limits and the market has moved on. Just look at Nissan Navara sales. Rather than a "new Defender" they should be starting with a clean slate and identifying the target market.

Obviously the full picture is yet to emerge but my first reaction is that this is just another 'car'.

The 90/110 etc. (Defender never reached my vocabulary!) was a load carrier and platform with customisation potential. Has that multi-function platform concept now been completely abandoned by LR?

What, too, about something that'll be maintainable in the developing world and by those of us elsewhere who would appreciate something that we could repair ourselves. Where we are there'll be no escaping the emission control nasties but something that'll get you home (and not just round the corner) without leaving you high and dry at the roadside would be welcome.

Is this another opportunity missed?

Exactly why I currently have a Pathfinder as the daily driver, the 110 is still here mind, but it's (the 110) not comfortable, it doesn't have the safety features such as passenger air bags and a roof that insipres confidence in a roll, its breathless and even the new engine for 2012 is hardly quick. My 110 would find it difficult to carry a couple of bales of hay without intruding in to the seating area.. the rear door access is pants.. A Disco I has more load space! OK for a 1950 design but Landrover seem to have been seriously left behind here... Icon, yes.. so a the early VW Beetle.. but is it up there with the best of modern motors.. not a hope.

Which would I prefer to be in during a drama unfolding... well the 110 of course.. I want to look cool when I go!

Lee D

I understand it is very difficult to replace the Defender and please everyone and I can but imagine what has and is going on in the design office at LR, wonder if there have been any punch-ups. The thing is, do they replace the Defender with it's myriad of configurations and very small sales or do they go after the Toyota Landcruiser Utility market which is huge, especially abroad. Personally I think they need to give the market what it wants with a totally new vehicle and perhaps make a new Defender with all it's different options in India for those needing a specific vehicle. Maybe they can make the two types out of the same design but it depends on the chassis used. Yes rear access needs to be van like especially in the vans, if only two seats in the front where does the dog sit? Can you drive it in wellies, especially muddy ones? I would like the SWB van to be able to take a hoe lengthways so perhaps the load area could be a little longer or the bulkhead could be redesigned, do we want it done away with? Probably not as it's a safety feature with loose stuff in the back.

-- Regards Bob Hobden

1986 90 Utility 2.5 petrol

In message , Bob Hobden writes

There just isn't a market for the Defender type vehicle. Only 18000 sales in the UK this year and small sales means high price/no profit.

The point about India is that labour costs are about 25% of what they are in the UK, and I understand that 50% of Defender costs are labour.

At 25% cheaper the Defender becomes a cheap vehicle...

If you could pick up a Defender 'hard top' for £15,000 it'd be a cheap buy.

However recent Indian imports seem to be sold by the importers for a huge mark-up.

The 'City Rover' was sold for about £8,000 but the Tata Indica it was based on sold for about half that back then.

"William Black" wrote

I remember doing a Management Course and on one day we had to work out, in groups, the price we were to sell a product. Most groups spent ages working out costs to work out the retail price, the winners spent more time looking at what it could be sold at, what the market would pay and how many they would sell at each price.

-- Regards Bob Hobden

1986 90 Utility 2.5 petrol

Someone should have told Rover about that.

They tried to sell this particular car at a price that was unreasonable, and they hardly sold any.

The reason nobody is buying Land Rover Defender pick-ups for £20,000 is that you can buy a Toyota pick-up for about £15,000...

Absolutely.

If we could buy a Defender brand new for less than £16000 we'd all have one! What they don't seem to realise is the depth of feeling people have for the marque. Yes they play to it by sponsoring a few shows and events and things, but I'd rather they simply dropped prices to bring it into line with it's real aspirations. Even if it were a totally basic setup (how much more basic can it get?) for 16k it'd sell like there was no tomorrow.

Take most of the electronics away, get it back to a 'hose the inside down to clean it' utility vehicle with extra tie-down points, a small choice of body, simple utility 'van', simple pick-up, simple crewbus with a range of bolt-on quality extras available such as aggressive tyres etc and I reckon it'd be a winner.

If they try to make it another part of a range of aspirational (where do they get their marketing dept from?) vehicles I think they'll fall flatter than a flat thing.

"hugh" wrote

I think there is a market for a Defender type vehicle but at a much reduced price. It has to be a basic utility vehicle, a workhorse, nothing more. We don't need a "County" type vehicle, it needs to be a farm vehicle as it always was designed to be. Something that looks better for few dents! :-) Costs wise it would need to be made in India or similar. I'm not saying the present design mule is wrong, there is a place for such a vehicle at the right price, competing with the other pickups, especially Toyota so it would have to be totally reliable, but there will still be a call for a real go anywhere do anything Defender. Not everyone can afford or needs a Unimog.

-- Regards Bob Hobden

1986 90 Utility 2.5 petrol

My personal view is that after the new vehicle is introduced Tata move the Defender factory to India and supply the vehicles and spares from there.

It makes a lot of sense.

The tyres on that "thing" show the market they're aiming at. Real question is can you put 7.50s on it?

Gordon

Sadly not an option these days. If just for emmisions regs etc, it's currently the only pracical way to get the power + economy(?) and relatively clean exhaust from an IC engine, is by extremely close monitoring and control, so the exhaust cat's can do their job.

And all that needs embedded computing power close to a good desktop PC or better. The electronics is rarely the problem, it's all the "prince of darkness" connections, and muppet mechanics who just pull connectors while powered, or cut wires "just because". If the systems survive that, then water/dirt gets in, the connections go bad, then all sorts of "faults" appear, that everyone then blames on the electronics...

People I know who service ECU's for instance. They say that of the

100's of them they get a month to "repair". Only a small % have a genuine hardware fault. But they all have a huge number of faults logged in their internal memories, relating to bad sensor signals, or wiring errors. Reset, reprogram, good to go...

As to the styling/construction etc. Monocoque construction will probably have to be used, to get the weight down, while keeping the strength. Less weight = less fuel = less emisisons etc, while alowing a higher payload % of the total vehicle weight. There are of course many ways to do that...

Those photos' look more like a Disco that shrunk in the rain, or a remoddled F'lander. And yes, as for those wheels and tyres...

At some of the shows the last year or two, there was some company, selling kits that took a Defender, and grafted on Disco (or RR) bulkhead, dash, and screen, + interior for the driver/pasenger front area, but leaving the "utility" area at the back.

It looked superb, to the extent where all of us looking at it said the same thing. If LR were to make, the world would surely buy. (But it still has the heavy chassis and live axles...)

Likewise with the 3/4 size monocoque red "90" seen at the Gaydon museum a few years ago. OK, the center gearbox arangement was probably less than practical to produce, but the overall styling and interior (in the front at least) everyone who saw it wanted one. (Different market though...) How good (or otherwise) it was or would be "in the rough" of course, we'll never know.

Guess management were less than impressed....

Regards.

DaveB.

"gordon" wrote

More info...

and Interesting they are thinking of going back to the old Series idea of switchable 4 wheel drive.

Regards. Bob Hobden. Posted to this Newsgroup from the W of London, UK