Mcgovern: all style, no substance

In an interview with GQ magazine, Mr Gerry Mcgovern had this to say about the Defender in reply to how important is theatre in automotive design? “If you take reductionism to the optimum point, you can end up with something sterile. At the end of the day, you are designing an object that has to be relevant. With the Defender, there is a clear view that it has to celebrate its past, but so much has changed since it started. Lifestyle will influence the design and propel it from the original. The trick is to capture the essence of what that vehicle was, but not be oversensitive to what’s gone before’.

Where he says so much has changed is at odds with how we use Defenders. Nothing has changed in how we use them since 1948. Even though the Defender was improved enormously you can more or less do the same things in the 1948 vehicle as you can do in the last 2016 model. Mcgovern is obsessed with design and style, but it is obvious he has never been a Defender owner, nor does he understand those who use them.

What we need is an affordable, reliable, configurable, Tdi/v8 and safe vehicle suitable for the civil and military users. We don’t need or want the expensive style of the new designer cars from Solihull thank you very much. Tim Bendix via email

I’d read that quote from Mcgovern and I thought it was pretentious drivel – Ed.