It’s been mooted, discussed and mulled over, but it finally looks like after 65 years the venerable Land Rover Defender will be replaced with a new model.
Jaguar Land Rover’s group marketing director, Phil Popham, has confirmed this and we’re likely to see the new car in 2016. Underpinning it will be the scalable PLA aluminum platform used in the Range Rover, Range Rover Sport and the upcoming Land Rover Discovery replacement. It goes without saying that exceptional off-road ability is crucial for this next gen. vehicle and JLR’s engineers will no doubt beef up the PLA platform to make it as stiff and rugged as possible.
Under the hood we’re expecting Land Rover’s Ingenium four-cylinder engines as well as its V6 units. While eight- and nine-speed auto ‘boxes are likely, in keeping with the Defender’s climb-any-mountain image, there should be a manual too.
And what will it look like? Well it won’t look like the DC100 concept we saw back in 2011, that received some criticism in the press, though we quite liked it. Britain’s Autocar mag have mocked-up some images and wearing the Range/Land Rover’s corporate grill, this is more likely closer to the mark.
Source: Autocar.co.uk