The people at Solihull must be terrified whenever the talk comes around to the Defender replacement.
How do you replace a vehicle that has only had one real design change in 57 years? That has been sold and used in practically every country on the face of the earth? That has a fanatically loyal enthusiast following? That still has 70% of its predecessors on the go today?
The Tdi and Td5 Defenders will probably be looked at as the peak of the utility Land Rover- the Tdi engines are reliable, easy to service and easy to use, whilst the Td5 is better on- and off-road, but is too complex for some users (and definitly not to my taste).
The next Defender will probably still have a seperate chassis and coil-spring suspension, but probably not the live axles. It may not have the mechanical gearbox/diff lock controls. Land Rover have said they want Terrain Response to 'filter down throughout the range' which doesn't sound promising for those of us who like to use a Defender as we want to, not as a computer tells us. A van-body commerical version is a possibility, but truck cabs will be out, as will the bolt-together quick-change bodywork. Station Wagons and Dual Cabs will the mainstay of the range.
If that is the case, I won't be getting one, and I doubt many of Land Rover's remaining utility customers, farmers and wilderness users will either.
My ideal Land Rover is a late-model Series III or a pre-Defender coil-sprung- the combination of easy-to-live-with interiors, enough comfort and performance for me, bomb-proof mechanicals and excellent off-road ability is a winning one.
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