i thought they didn’t make them anymore. guess i was wrong.

The defender is the most enduring of the range – there are more models now than ever Unfortunately they have a patchy history of reliability, but when they are working their offroad ability and flexibility is legendary. This model is supposed to be far more civilised on the road too, which was always a problem in the earlier ones.

That’s the only good Rover there ever was.

what do these start at price wise?

wish it’d come to the states with redesigned front and back. its hott.

its kindda boxy

ugly as hell looks like a damn fish tank

this is one great car! Saw a lot of them in East Africa, used for safaris and believe it or not the cops!

Yeah, it does look like a fish tank!

bring them back to america

Awesome, The ORiginal! Bring it back to the states please!

It looks a little too boxy for me, but I’m sure it’s a great car. I would love to see a car like this in the USA, but unluckily probably emmissions or something will not allow it. Probably doesn’t get good gas milage either, boxes aren’t technically aerodynamically efficient…
The only thing I do not like about this car is the center consol, other than that this is a damn good car. I’m also curious about how much the current Defender costs too

Explain how in the world this thing looks like a fish thank. Just Curios

When I went on Safari to Tanzania, I got a chance to drive the current model (not during the actual Safari) and I think it is just Rock Solid. I don’t have any off roading skills but its true they are very dominant in Africa and Australia which I think speaks volumes for this cars capability.

if u think its ugly and too boxy, buy something else…this car has never been about looks, the people who buy these are genuine off road drivers, not trying to make a fashion statement… i like the updated interior, and it seems that engine will be quite something else…i will be truly sad when in 2012 its design will be rendered obsolete, and we wont see it anymore

That’s what the FJ Toyota shudda looked like…. They got all cutsie and bugger’d it. Too bad you need a trust fund to buy and operate a LR … a local dealer is quite handy too.

j i m

…forgot: I saw a new/old one … long wheelbase … in Panama in March. It was beautiful and perfect for that country. …it’s probably not so cool on I-70 westbound.

j i m

I had a friend who FUBAR’d his… bad. Going down Sledgehammer the throttle jammed wide open, on the brakes one of the front caliper brackets sheared, ripping the line… after bashing down the section of trail with no brakes and the engine turned off, a 10,000lb boulder stopped his forward motion at the edge of a cliff. totaled doesn’t begin to decribe. That was hell winching him down.

damn I want one!!!!

Thank god he wasn’t in a Grand Cherokee or a Commander, he’d be so FUBAR’d as well as the truck

Why do people talk like this is a new car, haven’t they ever seen a Land Rover before?

I thought Sledgehammer was rapids in Royal Gorge?

ugly & boxy = MB G Class, now that is one ugly boxy car!

I have always been a fan of this rover….the rugged looks fit this vehicle perfectly…I would love to own one

Sorry to burst everyone’s bubble, but this one won’t be coming back to the U.S. Land Rover pulled the Defender from the U.S. market after 1997 due to new federal safety standards requiring driver and passenger airbags. If you’ve ever ridden in a Defender or looked into the interior of one…the dash is about 6″ deep, with no room whatsoever for all the airbag equipment.

By the looks of it, this one is still lacking airbags.

And yes, they are awesome offroaders. If it weren’t for the electrical gremlins…

Here’s a pic of my old one that I sold a year ago…

http://static.flickr.com/32/61235929_9ce5c24b50_o.jpg

Doogs, do you have the bucket dropouts on that? that thing is pretty sick!

Jimmy Krankie: no, you’re confusing Jeep with Toy Ota. What a nasty thing to do.

What do you mean by bucket dropouts? Maybe I’m used to a different terminology?

Looks a little like a g wagon but still nice.

the appearance of this rig is not even secondary. It is a purpose built vehicle. It’s beauty is in it’s function. It has few peers off road.

Doogs, I am referring to the coil dropout kits, allowing the coils to drop free of the buckets.

Yep – we were indeed thinking of the same thing. The Defender’s rear springs are actually not retained up top. The length of the shocks and the restrictiveness of the swaybar keeps things in line. When you make the move toward flexier hardware (as I did), the springs will unseat under articulation. I had “spring cones” to guide the springs back into position. I know of others who preferred to use spring retainers.

So stupid federal sfety regs are keeping this best of the best out of the states? I wish Land Rover would get a waiver approved/PAID for like Ferrari did for the F430… This REAL truck is too good to keep out of the US, nothing we have here can compare! I still plan on getting a D90 convertible sometime in the future. I just wish the used prices were more reasonable. Last I checked $20K+.

it looks the same as the old one, except they’ve added windows where there wasn’t windows, and more seats………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….and that’s about it……..really……………….

Mmmm… The Land Rover Defender… droool.

That’s what I’ve always considered the standard for serious off-roading.

After all, if it’s used to travel through the Outback in Australia… and the savannah in Africa… it’s gotta be pretty dang good, you know?

There was a plan about 4 yrs ago at FoMoCo to use this platform as the basis for a Wrangler-like version of the Bronco but got scrapped when they looked at the cost and exhaust issues. It wouldve been a great flashback to the original Bronco’s and not just a Bcar boxy variant.

Oh the dreams of pipedreamers…

COOL!

Half-kidding. It’s been a few years, but there was a specific reason Land Rover could not retrofit airbags to the current Defender design. Had something to do with the dash and firewall, if I recall.

Agreed, though. It is a poor excuse. I think it has more to do with Land Rover’s pursuit of the yuppie wannabe offroad set (see every product made since 2001)…the Defender’s too raw…too unrefined…stupid decision…the Defender’s design costs are more than amortized. Land Rover could probably make back the costs of incorporating airbags with just one model year on the U.S. market. After that…nothing but fat margins and high profits for almost no effort.

They only sell about 20,000 Defenders a year in the whole world with the majority of these sales being fleet driven. Lots of companies and governemnts by Defenders for commercial or military use. The bean counters determined it was not worth the extra expense to redesign the entire defender to incorporate airbags into it for the few thousand defenders a year they would sell in the US.

Kepp in mind this was back in 1997-1998 when BMW still owned Land Rover and BMW most defnietly called all the shots. BMW kept Land Rover on a much shorter lease then ford does.

By the time Ford entered the picture in 2000 the projected life of the current defender was around 2007 or so and Ford had already said a new platform would be made for the new Disco 3/LR3. This platorm is called T5.

The idea was that this platform would also be the new Defender platform and some other model as well. That other model became the Range Rover Sport. Now as the LR3 was being designed they were also looking at how the defender could be made on different wheel base versions of the T5.

The original idea was to bring out the LR3/Disco 3 first and then bring out the new Defender on the new platform after another one year to 18 months. The stormer concept that would become the RRS would happen about a year after the new Defender launch.

While all of this was going on the bean counters were doing what they do best and the Industrial engineers were doing what they do best. The Defender is mostly hand built by 700 or so skilled craftsman. It costs a lot of money to make the Defender that way but because of the age of the design very few machines can be used in its construction. You aren’t going to see any robots on the Defender production line. Land Rover’s industrial engineers figured out a way to make the defender more efficently. They cut down on some of the steps necessary to build each model and automated a few procedures as well.

Well the bean counters here from the engineers that they made the Defender production line 0.xxx more effecient so the bean counters figure they can extend current Defender production to 2010 or 2011 with a slight update around 2006 or 2007.

The bean counters also figure out that launching the RRS first before the Defender will generate much larger profits as the RRS will be vehicle with more wide appeal and higher margins.

So that is why we sit here today with a slightly revamped Defender for 2007, the LR3/Disco 3 out and the RRS out but no New Defender that is approved for sale in the US.

I have put this history together from several conversations over the past year and a half with various Land Rover factory reps so I am probably missing some details or getting some of the time line wrong but this is how I remember it as it was told to me.

What ZenDriver forgets to mention is that Jag and Aston are both owned by … FORD, which turns out to be American. So I guess Americans are to be blamed for their bad showing as well.

I agree, there is no excuse for Land Rover not to fit this model with driver and passenger side airbags. Maybe they forgot to add the airbags to the final cost of the new interior LoL!

The Defender is a jeep wrangler on steroids with a diesel engine. Thats all anyone needs to know about Defenders.

I found this article on the web looking for defenders. It’s an artlicle about when the defenders will be back in the USA. Here’s the web site.
http://www.roverparts.com/VehicleReviews/LR_Defender_2007.cfm
just copy and paste it in the browser. The site has two drawings of what the defenders will look like maybe. Neither the D90 or 110 look anything like an actual defender. It sounds like ford is taking over the design of the defender. It’s too bad, cause the defender is one tough vehicle. They need to keep the boxy design of the Defender, it’s a genuine auto icon.

Interesting the comments from The US of A. The Defender is very much a utility workhorse vehicle. Mine (2003, 110 TD5, ie 2.5L 5 cylinder turbo diesel long wheel base) pulls out stumps (well my wife seems to like doing that job) carting rubble in the back, and yes in New Zealand they are still the most capable off roader. Others have been catching up and have better inside comfort. Nevertheless it will cruise all day at 110 -120 km/h and has good acceleration (for a brick) to pass slow trafic. It’s designed for off road so doesn’t handle the twisty pavement at speed very well. I love them. 9.5L/100k, seats 9, my wife and I sleep in it comfortably when we don’t want to pitch the tent…

It rocks!

I am huge fan of the old Landrover and own a 2004 Discovery myself, and direction that ford is going with this company makes me want to puke. Starting with the Discovery replacement, the LR3, what a joke that vehicle is. So when the big wigs at ford get together to bring the Defender back to the U.S. it’s going to be a revamped, and redesigned, for those yuppie wanna be offroaders who know nothing about the tradition of Landrover. They’ve already killed one legend the Discovery, and when they finally kill the Defender, the landrover name will truly be dead. Shame on ford for ruining something that I truly loved.