I’ve just stumbled upon this petition.

As much as i love the Landrover, i really don’t understand what a petition is meant to achieve… Perhaps they think LR should be nationalised…?

I just don’t get it.

It would need to be a petition calling for the cancellation of the implementation of new emissions standards, I believe. Chances of success: Quite Low

You like old defenders? Plenty about keep using them. A new improved version is way overdue cant wait to see what they end up replacing it with.

What twaddle. I used to own a Land Rover 90 and although I loved it, it was a piece of 1950s technology that should have been dropped years ago, being seriously unprofitable to manufacture, polluting, uneconomical, expensive to maintain, not to mention uncomfortable, slow and noisy to drive.

At the height of my Land Rover addiction I’d never have admitted all that, naturally.

That’s a very impotent petition.

There are already some quarters that think that the manufacturing licence for the Defender will be sold on to a specialist concern that is small enough to work around the legislation and profit issues killing the Defender. With their existing ties to Land Rover, Bowler is the main suspect.

I can’t see it myself, but then again I didn’t think the Rover V8 line would be sold lock, stock and barrel, and I also doubt those at JLR really want to see the Defender die. Land Rover has hung onto an (apparently) unprofitable, increasingly irrelevant model for as long as it has because they know for all its many, many faults, it has always been the foundation upon which their entire brand image is hinged.

For a company as entirely reliant on marketing and image as Land Rover, they’re about to lose their key USP. So while the accountants might be happy they’re finally seeing the back of the old dinosaur, I bet there’s been less celebration among the marketing team. Their jobs just got a lot harder.

It does seem strange that euro legislation is likely to kill off a vehicle that sells so well outside of Europe 😕

Defender is being replaced by a new all ali unit in 2015. I’d wait and see what is paraded out before signing petitions..

A friend has a Defender Utility Wagon – it’s hardly any more sophisticated than the Land Rover my folks had in the 1980’s. It does look very cool but it’s slow, uneconomical , noisy and handles poorly.

It’s more about image than the dynamics of the vehicle. That aside I’d love one.

Not a great LR fan or anything but why can’t be fitted with an engine that meets the new emissions regs?

Grumpy lot on here today 🙂

I think the Defender is an automotive icon! I also think there are plenty of old ones about and lot’s of new spare parts so it will live forever even if/when LandRover stop production 8)

Will the new version still leak,rattle,steering like a traction engine,turning circle of an oil tanker and headlights the equivalent of a candle?

you can’t just retrofit a new engine into an old chassis and hope it meets emissions, the weight will effect it, it’s the reason why RR’s have finally seen the light and gone all ali as well.

I think everyone will be pleasantly surprised once the lineup is announced..

but it’s slow, uneconomical , noisy and handles poorly

all of which are pretty much irrelevant to people that actually use them for their intended purpose, where they excel, if people stopped viewing them as a car and applying car like rationale to them, and instead viewed them as the agricultural tool that they are, it would make a lot more sense*

*not to say that they’re not long overdue an overhaul though!

Sui – Why would the weight effect it? Surely a modern engine would be smaller and lighter for the same power output?

The Austin 7 and Morris Minor where automotive icons but there’s a good reason they’re dead.

Wasn’t it more about the fact that the new more stringent crash/crumble zone legislation meant that the inherent design of the chassis and front end would no longer be viable rather than emissions? Might be wrong of course…

Because you’re talking about dumping said new smaller lighter engine into a on old cast iron lump. emissions and mileage accumulation tests these days work on drive cycles out on a track, and as such you will be lugging a big heavy chassis around on a engine that is designed to be used in something upto a 3rd less weight.

and what bigdaddy says..

Still the perfect tool for farmers, double cap pick ups don’t come close, now uses sane engine and gearbox as transit van, brakes actually work, steering good, goes like a train, still cramped & uncomfortable, but there is no utility vehicle like it.

This could be the kick up the backside Landrover need. There’s no reason you can’t build a lightweight, utilitarian vehicle with a more modern engine. For the life of me I can’t see why they allegedly cost so much to build – the metalwork and paint wouldn’t get a D at GCSE.