LAnd Rover Defender is back!
 

And it looks soft as a kitten!

https://www.autoblog.com/2019/09/10/...#slide-2166773

Plus the stretched 4 door version looks a bit weird...almost 4 door mini cooper wierd or mini clubman wierd..…..

It just made me wonder that since the Defender has returned, and the Ford Bronco is coming back, that Toyota might consider reviving the FJ40 Land Cruiser? The Land Cruiser has gotten quite big lately and seems to be getting bigger.....

Review by Richard Hammond

[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vac6mJE8rqo[/ame]

:( Just awful.

I wouldn't own a Rover if it was given to me.

why is that?

As for the release, this may not meet the appearance standards of some of the people chanting for a G wagen style smoothing but this thing is awesome, the factory offerings for equipment and its capabilities are rad.

JLR isn't exactly known for their reliability or quality these days. Almost any new Range Rover owner I stay in contact with has had their cars disappear for repairs on numerous occasions, sometimes for weeks at a time. The upside is they get equal or better vehicles as loaners. This probably keeps them from complaining too loudly. That aside, this new Defender is bad ass.

I am leaning towards agreeing with you. At first I was a bit put off by the fact that it looks a bit like a Clubman or even a stretched Kia Soul, and the attempt with the headlight halos to make it look angry is a little kitschy to me.

But, there is a lot of good tech in this, it looks fabulously comfortable and the price isn't really that bad for what you are getting. Plus anything that can push a wake in 3 ft of water is OK by me.

You're totally right. I guess it's me becoming an old fart, lamenting the death of a generation of vehicles that I personally idealize as the sweet spot of vehicle design for enthusiasts. Vehicles are too slick now, too comfortable, too efficient. No character, no flaws, no noise, too comfortable, too complex. Probably why I'd prefer an early 911 vs the newer ones (that would run absolute circles around the early cars). There's something to be said (IMHO) for vehicles that take care of you but don't coddle you too much.

i get all of that and mostly agree with you but if I was going to build an overlanding rig to cover any real distance i wouldn't wanna do it out of an earlier defender. I love all the character that the older gen cars have, I had a 356 my uncle still has one of the first gelandawagens imported and there is something very special about them, until you have to cover some real distance. I am really going to think long and hard if this is going to replace my RRS as the new beach/overlanding vehicle once it comes out.

i think a lot of the reliability issues are for people not doing proper maintenance or service centers not properly fixing issues the first time, I currently own 2 Land Rover products that have been nothing but reliable and i got rid of my LR3 that had 170k on it at the time.

The transformation to suburban status symbol is now complete. Land rover does not make a single vehicle that any serious off-roader would seriously take off-road.

to be fair the same can be said about the G, they are capable but most of the consumers do not use that capability and that isn't either of their faults. I mean how many mall crawler wranglers do you see on 37's

Hard to say from my small sample size, but most issues have been electrical/heavy mechanical unrelated to any maintenance, preventative or otherwise.

Also I think the older products pre-TATA were a shade better. A lot of teething issues in the new gens.

everything i own is pre TATA so i can see that being true, but what i hear from my customers seems to be all good things nothing more than any other luxury auto brand with all the nonsense in the cars.