NEW LAND ROVER DEFENDER TO SPAWN A FAMILY OF SUVS
DEFENDER TO FOLLOW DISCOVERY AND RANGE ROVER NAME AND FOSTER A RANGE OF MODELS BEARING ITS NAME.
When the new Land Rover Defender 110 is launched worldwide later in March it will be the first of a family of new SUVS to wear the iconic nameplate. The Defender 110 won’t arrive in Australia until August but it will be followed by the 3-door Defender 90 in October with the whole range of 110s and 90s expected to be on sale here by year’s end.
While some might argue that the Defender 90 is a compact SUV, Land Rover is missing is a true compact SUV with the smallest vehicles in the current range being the Range Rover Evoque and Discovery Sport cousins.
Compact SUVS are popular with buyers and Range Rover could do with a competitor to the BMX X2, Mercedes Benz GLA and Audi Q2 while the Discovery group would like to be selling against the likes of Mazda CX3,
Subaru XV and even the sub-compact Jeep Renegade and the forthcoming Bronco Sport from Ford.
But could a sub-compact Land Rover SUV come under the Defender nameplate? The Renegade and Bronco Sport tiny tots both take on styling ques of their iconic off road bigger brothers and we’re led to believe that Land Rover is working on a new, shorter wheelbase derivative of its aluminium architecture to underpin new models for Range Rover and Defender.
The die-hard Land Rover faithful might cringe at the thought of the Defender badge being applied to a light-duty compact SUV but stranger thigs have happened as vehicle manufacturers look to trade on the heritage of their famous nameplates.
A document leaked last year suggested that the Defender 110 and 90 models will be joined by a 130 wagon in 2021 or 2022, but when asked about the 130 at a recent Defender drive event, a spokesman said “you shouldn’t believe everything you read on the internet.” The document claimed that the 130 would ride on the same wheelbase as the 110 but the rear end would be extended togive third row passengers extra space.
A soft-road Defender SUV seems more likely than a Defender pick up at this stage as sources inside JLR say there are currently no plans to produce a ute. With the new Defender eschewing the traditional ladder-frame chassis design for a modern aluminium monocoque platform, crating an allnew ute would be a big and expensive task although not impossible to do.
When asked about the prospects of a new Defender ute the spokesman said there were no plans to enter the popular pick up segment at this point and cited the failure of the Mercedes Benz X-class pick-up as an example of what could happen if a brand got it wrong.
THE LAND ROVER FAITHFUL MIGHT CRINGE AT THE THOUGHT OF THE DEFENDER BADGE BEING APPLIED TO A LIGHT-DUTY COMPACT SUV.