New Range Rover model planned

Freelance journo wrote:

And STILL where is the new Defender? Yes I know Tata have now provided funds, but you're not telling me LR didn't have the plans already drawn up, surely, so that they could press 'go' as soon as the money was there? Oh, hold on, this is LR; they probably didn't! Companies like VW have models they can instigate quickly. Does LR?

The Evoque is way overpriced and by economies of scale would sell more if they brought the price down.

Comparing LR to Toyota and Mitsubishi? You're damned right I am! When LR came out of the back of a huge company like BL they had resources (read the Defender history book, I have). But LR's management couldn't see what the Japanese did, and didn't capitalise on the original RR, and (prior to 1983) offered a pathetic Defender against a Toyota Hi Lux even then. A smaller RR should have surfaced, and the Defender should have been re-modelled. Instead (and because of reliability) they lost the Australian market first, then all of Asia to the Japanese.

LR is a Brit company of extraordinary mismanagement. Take the original Freelander as a small but classic example: When they released it (and for some time after) they never had an auto option! Yet at the time RRs and Discos were selling massive numbers of autos, but LR again lost out to auto Shoguns. Pathetic management.

Land Rover have been kicking Defender improvement/replacement projects of various sorts around since the early 1990s (Project Challenger, LCV etc.). More recently the initial project for the new Defender has been moved from back- to front-burner and back again depending on what legislation is looming on the horizon. The Landy press 10 years ago were saying how it was a certainty that the Defender wouldn't be legal past 2004, then it was going to be the 2007 passenger safety regulations (which required the seating modification in the current model) and now it's apparently going to be the 2012 pedestrian safety regs that finally kill off the old warhorse. To say that they've been kicking their heels up at Solihull since 1983 is not the case.

Plus- legislation aside- what's the incentive to replace the Defender? It does the job just as well now as it did back in 1983 when it's predecessor was launched (btw the Defender didn't exist before 1990....it was 90/110 before that and the Series models before that) and sales have been rock solid at 25k/year for the past 20-odd years. LR doesn't have the capacity to build any more anyway and they have their niche.

Comparing LR to the Japanese firms is simply not possible. Land Rover was never more than a brand of Rover until 1979 and its engineering and financial resources were shared with the rest of the BL Specialist Division (Rover, Jaguar, Triumph). That's why the Range Rover wasn't improved until the 1980s. 4-door and automatic RR development hacks had been kicking around Solihull back in the early 70s but the money was never there to productionise them and anyway- they were selling them as fast as they could make them.

Personally, speaking as a big Landy fan, I think their current line up is very, very good. All the models seem to be at or near the top of their niches and are selling well. They seem to be turning around the reliability woes as well (early Disco 3s were riddled with electronic glitches- haven't heard anything about the D4). For all the moaning they are still fully off-road capable. Yes, they could ditch all the 4WD, twin-range transfer boxes, trick interlinked air suspension, traction control, towing capability etc. but surely that is Land Rover's USP these days?

The Tata plan (if it's true) for vehicle in the mould of the original Disco is a good one- you could eaisly use a base-spec Disco 1 as a comfortable working utility vehicle as an alternative to a Defender Station Wagon. A D4 would be very capable but even the base-spec ones are too good to slowly ruin in that way these days.