WTFChuck - you're being pedantically weird; WTF suits you ... The question is about roof strength in the real world - It's like you totally overlook what Ineos Grenadier offers in their roof design. A roof absolutely can be something strong enough to walk across and be fully functional at all points. New Defender is not designed that way - it's not a fully stable, weight supporting roof. If you disagree, go CAD in hand and get up on your New Defender roof; you'll have not problem standing on the glass as you load/unload stuff, because it says it's OK to do, right? Purposeful, think purposeful - Defender should be a tool. Putting glass on roughly 75% of a roof - to me - is like removing some of the features from your Swiss Army knife: who would use all the various tools anyways?! If you like the glass roof, great, but don't grab a CAD and conclude a glass panel is sufficiently load bearing to recommend there is no structural advantage to something similar to what Grenadier offers. Obviously, there's nothing Defender couldn't match that - they could if they wanted to. But the question is, will they? Right now, selling Defenders with a hole and glass panel in the top, they don't seem interested in marketing a comparably strong roof to compete with Grenadier. Just me, but I'm absolutely not standing on a glass panel - good luck to you though - you enjoy that experience.

 

I think the cut away drawing in Post #33 is not a definitive answer as to the structure of the 110. I think cross brace pieces #5 and #6 were deleted for clarity to show the structure inside the vehicle. That drawing has a lot of structure cut away and not shown. I am not willing to pull down the headliner to find out however. Maybe someone can find a wrecked Defender with out the pano roof and check it out.

Full disclosure: My truck does not have a Panoramic roof, so I come down on the side of it being more rigid of course. No windshield cracks yet either (now I've jinxed myself...).

 

Its kina funny....reading the recent posts, I totally forgot that I started this thread.... But really (and I will probably get roasted for this) aren't we just splitting hairs here? Whatever the delta is in torsion strength (should it actually exist) may be, I don't know that I would wanna be riding shotgun with someone who;

A) Figured out a way to max out the torsion tolerances in the field
B) Wanted to see if the glass held up just as good as the steel in a roll over

For me, regardless if you are in a Defender or Abrams Tank...these scenarios seem less than fun to me. Some of you may feel otherwise, and if you do, I wish you nothing but the best in your pursuits.

Out of sheer curiosity however, I am genuinely curious as to what situation you could find your self in where the summation is "dang it...if only this stupid Defender had more torsion strength.." Other than that, I figure that if they can make glass strong enough to stop a bullet, then they can make glass strong enough to keep my car from twisting like I am ringing out a dishrag. I have the panorama, I love the panorama, and would get it again every time...and I love it still now with the Expo Rack as I can see my poorly strapped items fly off and hit whatever happens to be in the way.

 

Same. Can you imagine sitting in the car for this test?

 

I was not aware and find it amazing that Grenadier have apparently deviated from all other auto manufacturers/and international safety standards by engineering their roof to allow direct loading on the roof panel itself. Curious why they also engineered and incorporated roof rails and two options for roof rack in their design.

Not to be outdone by Ineos, I'm off home to don my tap shoes and do a number on my glass roof.

Also, this little nugget may or may not be relevant.

Just look at that flimsy glass panel

 

That's one crazy *** video.. I wonder if they walked out or were carried out..

 

It was a lady who works at one of my local dealerships. She and her husband walked away.

 

I thought maybe they'd walked away. good for them. IMO this is up there head on's and being T-boned at speed. I've experienced a slow 4 flip (more like a tumble that was gaining speed had it not been for the tree to stop us) but not that fast. and the fact that it was in the air, fuuggeettabboouuttiiiittt.. This is a tough crash to walk away from in most anything else. Roof & pano glass looked like it held up too. with a six year old kid as my sidekick, it's comforting to know these things can take quite a beating.

 

Walked away. I think that's all the proof I'll ever need that I'm satisfied with my Defender's roof engineering.

 

Agreed.

Whatever little foibles LR has been know for, lack of robust design is not one of them. The Defender (including its roof) is built like a brick sh1thouse.