Land Rover design director Gerry McGovern has promised that the new Defender will be as tough as the original.
“You’ll be able kick the hell out of them and they’ll get up for more,” McGovern said, according to Automotive News.
McGovern told the publication that the new model is “not far away”, adding that “the anticipation is incredible”.
Codenamed L663 D7u, the new Defender will run on the British brand’s all-aluminium platform, ditching the original’s ladder-frame chassis. It is expected to go into production in 2018.
“This was a vehicle that for a very long time was the emotional core of our brand. Given it was so old it had become an anchor,” McGovern said.
“In order to move our brand forward we needed to create more desirable and relevant vehicles to appeal to a wider group of customers,” he added.
Read more about the next-generation Defender (and see our rendering) in the July 2017 issue of CAR magazine.
