GARY PUSEY

“If JLR do introduce a utility pick-up it might allow them to recapture some of the market lost years ago in Africa and South America”

THERE WAS a palpable buzz of anticipation among the assembled journalists at JLR’S World Land Rover Day event at Ryton and it was not just the prospect of seeing the 70th anniversary video being filmed before their very eyes that was getting the media all hot under the collar. It was the expectation that JLR was going to use the event to reveal the new Defender.

Quite how this expectation came about is unclear, because JLR hadn’t said anything at all about showing the new vehicle. One website in the US convinced itself that new Defender was going to be shown because in the run-up to the event JLR had been referring to important milestones in Land Rover history: the launch of the original vehicle in 1948, the introduction of the Range Rover in 1970, the appearance of the Discovery in 1989, and so on. Come the event, of course, the new vehicle was nowhere to be seen.

JLR has certainly been stoking the fire, though. At the Geneva Motor Show, Richard Woolley, Land Rover’s head of design, said he’d have liked to have seen the new vehicle launched at the Detroit Motor Show back in January, so that it could have gone head-totoe with the new Mercedes G-wagen. And it has been common knowledge for months now that JLR will be revealing the vehicle this year, hasn’t it? After all, that’s what everyone is saying. Everyone except JLR, that is. Their official position remains tight-lipped and in fact they have never made any comment about the schedule for the grand reveal.

There is no doubt that the new Defender has been out and about, though, and any number of photographs have appeared purporting to show it. But I think JLR has taken a leaf out of the original Freelander launch book, when they were tested on the public highway with Maestro van bodies bolted on to the new chassis and drivetrain. It was the ultimate disguise to prevent anything leaking out on the new vehicle – and it worked.

I have to say I am not convinced that the new Defender spyshots that we’ve all seen online show a vehicle with the eventual production body style.

There have been enough clues as to what it will look like, after all. Richard Woolley said at the Geneva Motor Show that it will stay true to the principles that made the classic model a success.

He also said that he’d had a chance to examine the new G-wagen and said that although every single body panel is new, the vehicle still looks very much like its predecessor. And it does, with only the spare wheel cover, headlight washers, exterior door release buttons and sun visors being carried forward from the original G-wagen. The new one is wider with a new ladder-frame chassis with independent front suspension and rack-and-pinion steering. So it’s an all-new vehicle, but it looks just like the old one. It can be done.

Other commentators are convinced that JLR will produce both short- and longwheelbase versions and that a longwheelbase pick-up is a certainty; their logic being that to achieve viable production numbers JLR will have to create a genuine utility vehicle. This is a compelling argument, given the massive leap in sales of such vehicles in Europe: sales in the UK alone have risen by 15 per cent since 2016. Mercedes themselves have just entered this market with their new X- Class, which is basically a badge-engineered Nissan Navara. And, of course, if JLR do introduce a utility pick-up it might allow them to recapture some of the market they lost years ago in Africa and South America to the likes of Toyota, although it’s certainly a tough gig to get back into a market that you’ve lost in the past.

Earlier this year Ford announced its decision to halt most of its car production, and focus on trucks and SUVS. Its best-seller by far in its American home market is its range of F-150 utility vehicles, and there can be little doubt that JLR has its eye on this market. At this year’s New York International Auto Show Joe Eberhardt, JLR’S US boss, seemed to confirm that the new Defender would be launched into the American market. He was quoted as saying “We’ve said it’s a global vehicle. The United States is on the globe.”

Meanwhile, I’ve heard gossip that the new Defender has actually already been shown to groups associated with JLR, although all were sworn to secrecy and cameras and smartphones had to be deposited with security. JLR, of course, couldn’t possibly comment…

Gary Pusey is co-author of Range Rover The First Fifty, trustee of The Dunsfold Collection and a lifelong Land Rover enthusiast. What this man doesn’t know, isn’t worth knowing!