adafish wrote:

I recognise a lot of that underbody.....pretty mush similar to the 405/494 AND 462 I'm building at the mo....Remember L663 production team having a few parts from my area when on L462

You ll be getting another warning from your leader's office ~ Prof Gerry has said it's all totally unique

Supacat wrote:

You guys been in a modern aeroplane recently?

Supacat wrote:

Prof Gerry has said it's all totally unique

Devon-Rover wrote:

I had a play on the configurator and whilst it's possible to go mad I got to a spec to be happy with for about 53 grand, After all you get a vehicle to start with of a far superior level anyway.

We will all never agree about how we view what this new defender should of been. As it is a newer more advanced vehicles there is only so far we can all go with the 'Equivilent' specs with said person 'X's current defender.

I have been having a good look at reactions across the net and on social networks and there is a equal balance of good and bad. But I won't direct this at anyone however.

a bit of a explination comparison

Jump from a Series vehicle into a mid 90's 110 CSW and you think this is more luxury and greater capability (this is nice could get used to it) Go and then hop into the later puma XS and you have aircon and leather and driving aids like ABS / ETC so again more luxury and capability. (nice again better to live with)
So we take a leap into the new defender and we get

A whole new vehicle (not a multi time brought back from the dead model) - Don't argue before you go back through the media and magazines from the 90's to present day, and see how many times the defender was going to get axed due to emissions and safety legislation. The TD5 was getting long in the tooth by 2005 so the puma era (which again admit it the beardy TD5 and TDI brigade still don't like it for having a transit engine, and a different dash) was again a postponement of the Axe and we knew the replacement was coming... one day.
Just looking at how much further design and technology has gone into the vehicle and how much advanced it is then are we really surprised that it cost's a lot more?
The list of standard features far surpasse the old defender and not to mention you get a defender that won't leak, won't have odd panel gaps, won't be an affont to audiologist in terms of NVH, won't assault your elbows everytime you drive it, won't have a rear crossmember that rust's in a years time, won't have a chassis that the factory coating means rust within 5 years, Won't have window blocks that bubble and corrode, won't have galvanic corrosion of the cappings, won't have cappings that are not painted underneath, won't have drive flanges made of cheese, won't have drive shafts under specced for the power of the engine, won't have a drive adaptor time bomb between the gearbox and T-box, Won't have an engine which loosens it's own injector bolts, won't have an engine having to be brought in from a competitor manufacturer, Won't have a doors that are hard to close when parked on a crossaxle, won't have doors that are easy to steal, won't have a roof that cracks under light loads from a roofrack,

I won't go on but we need to move on.

I very much doubt i'm gonna afford a new one being on minimum wage, but looking objectively at a JLR product which are firmly putting themselves into the premium SUV category then why are we surprised?
We are all here due to the simple defender of old, and love the nostalgia of it being a simple workhorse BUT...
Not many of us do actually use those features that are bemoaned towards the new one. Take the hose out interior I saw being banded about. How many of us in the last week actively hosed your defender out? out of total forum pop what 5 of us? maybe? We have rubber mats that we remove and wash off.

Looking at it's family the discovery and the range rover they have all moved up market and up priced, Didn't you see it coming?

Freypal wrote:

I like the look of it... Specced a 110 up with all that I'd want and it came out at £49k. Surround cameras, heated seats, sat nav, climate control, cruise control, 3rd middle seat and clear view mirror, upgraded terrain response and active diff.

Base spec seems pretty generous to me.

Quote:

'It’s time everyone woke up to the fact that the new Land Rover Defender needs to change'
The market for this car isn't a mythical throng of utility workers and cattle herders, it's suburban families who dream of G-wagens
by: Richard Porter
11 Jun 2019

Do you remember the Bank Holiday Bond-a-thon episode of I’m Alan Partridge where the lead character listens with horror as his guests misremember 007’s adventures and eventually cries in anguish, ‘STOP GETTING BOND WRONG’? Well that’s how I feel about the new Land Rover Defender.

You probably know there’s a new Defender coming. It’s been a while because the original was extinguished by regulations while Land Rover was too busy engineering other models to make a new one, and had nowhere to build it anyway. That’s all taken care of now, and later this year we’ll see a new model. A few months ago you might have spotted a leaked picture of what’s claimed to be the dashboard. You might have also noticed a hubbub of reaction to it, much of it so misguided that I wanted to walk outside to my old-style Defender and slam my head in the tailgate.

When the new car finally appears I think a lot of people are going to be disappointed, because right now they’re doing the car equivalent of getting Bond wrong. ‘I hope the new Defender is true to its roots,’ they say, but what does that mean? Central steering wheel? Only one colour? Flappy, half-height doors?

I think what they’re really suggesting is that it should be a supreme off-roader like the old one, but that’s not entirely accurate because in its twilight years the original Defender wasn’t even the best off-roader in the Land Rover range. It was good, but it hadn’t got any chops that couldn’t be matched by an air-sprung, traction-controlled Range Rover.

In fact, Solihull people would quietly admit, the surprise off-road star in recent years was the old Range Rover Sport which, having a short wheelbase and modern chassis systems, just needed chunky tyres to show a Defender 90 the way home. In the current range, even the Discovery with its big overhangs and arse like Anne Robinson’s smile is remarkably competent off-road, so you can bet the new Defender will be just fine if you need to drive it up a landslide.

But I don’t think this is all that’s meant by ‘true to its roots’. I think it also suggests a kind of simplicity, which is why people who like getting Bond wrong always seem to use the phrase ‘hose-out interior’. What madness is this? I wouldn’t hose out the interior of my old Defender, because it’s got cloth seats and a stereo. When was the last time anyone hosed out the interior of a car? Have you ever sat in a car that’s been in water? It stinks and then fogs up like a so you crash into the river from which you just escaped. I’m sure the new Defender will be quite rugged and full of artful touches that make it seem outdoorsy, but it’s not going to be bog-basic because that’s not the market it’ll aim at. And this is where people really are getting Bond wrong.

‘Oh no,’ they wail, ‘it’s going to be a “lifestyle” off-roader.’ Well, yes. ‘But,’ they cry, ‘it should be for proper Defender drivers like the army and farmers.’ Now come on people, pay a-frigging-ttention here. The army only bought Defenders because they had to, and now they’ve decided they don’t like bullets coming into the cabin they’re relieved to be ordering more bespoke machines, just as Land Rover is relieved not to be dealing with the arse ache of government tendering processes. As for farmers, they switched to Mitsubishis and Toyotas years ago because they’re more dependable and more affordable.

You can have a Hilux for 20 grand, ex-VAT. The new Defender will not cost that. ‘Well it should,’ splutter Bond-wrongers. Yes, yes, yes, but it can’t. The cheapest model in the current Land Rover range is the Discovery Sport, which starts at a little over £30,000. The new Defender, which will be bigger and built on a fancy platform meant for Range Rovers, can’t undercut that. And why should it when the market for this new car is not a mythical throng of utility workers and cattle herders but, whether you like it or not, suburban families who currently have Discovery 4s and dream of Mercedes G-wagens?

After all, they’re the sort of people who have 45 grand to spend or, more likely, can run to the chunky monthlies on a PCP scheme. This is how Land Rover will survive in these tricky times, by making an expensive car that sells to well-heeled people for more than it costs to make, not by delivering on some deluded 1950s yeomanry fantasy for PC-bound pundits who aren’t going to buy one anyway.

I know nothing about the actual spec of the new Defender, but I’m going to say with confidence, it won’t be cheap, it won’t be basic and it won’t like it at all if you turn a hose on the interior. If you’re holding out for any of that you’re ignoring what will make it sell and what will keep the company making it alive.

So please, come on, for the love of God, stop getting Bond wrong.

 --
2010 Defender Puma 90 + BAS remap + Alive IC + Slickshift + Ashcroft ATB rear
2015 Range Rover Sport V8 Supercharged



Defender Puma Workshop Manual: https://bit.ly/2zZ1en9
Discovery 4 Workshop Manual: https://bit.ly/2zXrtKO
Range Rover/Sport L320/L322/L494 Workshop Manual: https://bit.ly/2zc58JQ