Future Models - Land Rover 2010 Defender

Defender in doubt

Under a cloud: Current Defender could be the last.

Land Rover refuses to commit to a future past 2010 for its hard-core Defender 4WD

21 November 2007

By BYRON MATHIOUDAKIS

LAND Rover has revealed that its current Defender 4WD may only have as little as three years left to run.

“The timeline we are looking at is 2010,” said Land Rover Australia general manager Roger Jory last week. “This current version is okay (until then).”

The local Land Rover boss was speaking to Australian media last week at the launch of the latest version of the 59-year-old Defender, the L316 07MY series. Pressed on whether Land Rover has a replacement in the wings for the vehicle, Mr Jory was noncommittal.

“We don’t know yet – but the current version is okay until 2010,” he said. “That’s not to say that we won’t see upgrades and that it won’t go longer, but at this stage we know it will go to 2010.”

The 07MY Defender marks the first important change to the range since the now-discontinued five-cylinder diesel engine was fitted in the early 1990s. However, it will be relatively short-lived.

In 2010, new European Union pedestrian-friendlier impact laws that are due to come into force means more changes to the Defender must come by then.

Whether Land Rover will restyle the nose of the current vehicle – which last saw significant body revisions in 1983 as part of a Series IV update – or go the whole way with a completely new model is unclear.

Speculation suggests that the former scenario is the more feasible option, as the current 25,000 annual global Defender sales are not enough for the Ford-owned British brand – which is currently up for sale, along with Jaguar – to justify the massive expenditure required to develop and design a successor.

Fresh markets for the Defender, such as China and Russia, as well as a return to the United States after a decade’s absence due to the L316’s lack of airbag technology, might boost that production figure substantially.

However, with ever more stringent emissions regulations and crash-test performance requirements hanging over it, the chances are slim that even a 2010 facelift of the current Defender would survive beyond 2013, necessitating a new-generation model eventually.

And should an all-new Defender arrive in 2013, it will probably not be based on any existing Land Rover (L359 Freelander, L319 Discovery, L320 Range Rover Sport and L323 Range Rover Vogue) chassis.

Rumours have circulated for years that Land Rover was going to spring its Defender replacement from the current Discovery’s T5 platform, but the cost of devising pick-up and cab-chassis versions off this premium base proved to be prohibitively expensive.

It also apparently weighs too much for some potential Defender applications.

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