Defending an old-school Land Rover

I don't know how to respond today after seeing on our very own homepage that the Land Rover people will bring the successor of its beloved Defender to the United States market.

The Defender is a vehicle about which “lust” is an insufficiently weak noun or verb; current and vintage Defenders elicit something beyond an emotive response. They are visceral. They are primal. They are rough and tumble, honest and masculine. They are industrial and agricultural. They are John Wayne and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, testosterone and musk that's all male, all the time.

A new Defender is fashioned/designed/stylized on the DC 100 concept that pranced onto the Frankfurt show floor last fall. Land Rover and Jaguar CEO Ralf Speth says the vehicle should make its coming out in 2015.

All Land Rovers henceforth will sell in the U.S. as the firm has learned it cannot ignore a market as large as this. In that previous generation Defenders could not 'legally' be sold here after 1997 added to their appeal.

Speth says the new Defender will come to the United States as an entry-level vehicle, which shouldn't be tough, as the “baby” Land Rover Evoque fashion statement starts in the mid-$40,000 range and tips into the $60,000 neighborhood.

I know that we Autoweek editors bestowed upon the Land Rover DC 100 the honorific of Most Fun vehicle at that Frankfurt show. However, after personally walking around it, I thought we suffered from delusions of adequacy. Yeah, that's just one man's opinion, but this Defender concept enjoyed nothing of what its predecessors had in terms of presence or gravitas.

Land Rover chief designer Gerry McGovern will point to design cues on DC100 and say it is homage to the heritage of the Defenders of yore. He might try to wax about its mighty shoulders and broad stance. But to this eye, there's nothing masculine about it. There's little about it that says Land Rover Defender.

What I will stop short from saying is that there's little about DC100 that says Land Rover. The company has shown style can supersede substance; that things like 'puddle lights that shine an Evoque silhouette' is something a Land Rover must have to perform optimally. That's because McGovern is also the stylist for the Evoque, a vehicle that's received heaps of praise. However, the Evoque is styled as a fashion statement; it makes a small sport utility vehicle adorable and sexy, which, I suppose, is one way to define the segment.

But in my feeble mind, that is not what qualifies as a Land Rover. To me, the Evoque is too made up, it tries too hard; its design is neither ever-lasting nor enduring. It, I believe, will go the way of other haute couture fashion items.

I don't think that's a fitting end for Defender. I don't think that's what Land Rover should become.

By Dutch Mandel