As someone in the automotive industry for 13 years now, I assure you LR Execs were not discussing Bronco, Wrangler, or fitting 35+ inch tires when developing the new Defender. Land Rover is a premium brand in the US and know their competition is other luxury off-roaders: Lexus GX and Mercedes G-Class. The GX for the lower trims and obviously the V8 towards the Merc. Yes, Ford has the Bronco Raptor now, and from a price-point perspective they know Defender buyers are cross shopping so its on their radar, but ultimately a Defender buyer is looking for comfort, refinement, quietness on-road with off-road capability when needed.

The 4-cylinder Defender offers a unique, low price point for those that want to take it off-road and use it more as a utilitarian vehicle than the 6-cylinder trims. It's great that LR are catering to those customers, and remember when Defender launched it started at $46k in the US. However, the average Defender selling price falls between $70-80k, far above the national average of $48k today. It is not priced for regular folk. Monthly sales of the 6-cylinder are currently running ~80% of total Defender sales and that percentage will hold steady for the foreseeable future.

I am not an engineer but my best guess is in order to stop this heavy vehicle safely with the I6 engine, you require larger brakes, hence the 19-22" wheel choices. So if you're looking for a true off-roader for the common man with massive tires stick with Bronco, Wrangler, or even an older GX with lifted suspension.

 

That is most definitely not the rhetoric of JLR marketing execs prior to the introduction of the new Defender. They vehemently promised a utilitarian, rugged vehicle at a lower price point and to steer radically away from the Range Rover trend. You are absolutely correct that the trend of luxury performance vehicles near and above 6-digit MSRP's is where the Range Rover trend has been for some time now, but that is especially characteristic of the US and middle-east markets. Lexus and Gelandewagens are much more the market peers of Land Rover's product line for the last 20 years, but JLR promised a much more rugged departure that would be radically different with the Defender and they promised that existing Defender owners would be happy with it. Instead, we got what we could expect from experience rather than their rhetoric -- another overly sophisticated luxury performance vehicle that's impractical for adventure, hardcore offroad, overlanding, and rugged use.

For me, the Defender was a massive let-down, but not an unexpected one. It was not hard to predict that it would be a lot closer to a different evolution of the Discovery 4 than it would be an heir to the original Series-1970RangeRover-110-Defender line.

While I can see that the Bronco has joined the Wrangler and Tacoma in offering actual rugged offroad capability to the US market, those still aren't the most practical offroad vehicles or the most popular -- that would easily be the whole (relatively) new SxS market. In the last 15 years, SxS have taken over in a big way. When I am out in the bush with my Land Rover, I will see more SxS by far than any other vehicle. In a way, a $20K to $30K SxS plus the tow vehicle for it could be seen as an even more costly proposition than a late model Wrangler, Bronco, or Tacoma, but they are found by many people to be more practical in actual use.

So I do not want the Defender to be more like a Bronco or Wrangler. To answer the OP, I wish the Defender had this: utility like the previous Defender. My Land Rover has the utility I want because it is continually being used where there are mostly SxS and not Wranglers, and certainly no other Land Rover product because Land Rover has not made anything like it for the US market in over 25 years. That is not to say that I want JLR to produce a SxS. I don't want a SxS, but the utility of one with glass and roadworthiness and safety on the highway.

A 7000 pound curb weight does not demand brakes so large they require 19-22" wheels. I have a 7000 pound pickup with 16" wheels and it has exceptional brakes that will stop it and a 16000 pound trailer. The only reason for 19-22" wheels is vanity. That's what the new Defender is, a vanity product.

 

There was no vanity involved in the purchase of my base specification 90 Commercial on steel wheels and with no extra bling at all.
The only thing l have fitted since the photo below was taken, is side steps

The vehicle has worked hard in my business over the last 12 months including visiting farms and crossing fields. Hardly stretching the off road capabilities of the vehicle but my Ford van wouldn't have accessed some of these places in Winter, l had to park it and walk.

 

Your post is confusing with several contradictions. You state the Defender was a massive letdown yet you bought one. You state it is not utilitarian like the previous version yet you claim it has the utility you want because it is continually being used where there are mostly SxS and not Wranglers. You state the Bronco and Wrangler are actual rugged, off-road capable vehicles, yet you state that you don’t want the Defender to be like that.

If the Defender isn’t off-road capable, how is it getting you to areas where there’s mostly only SxS and not Wranglers? For the record and this may not sit well here but as respectable as the current Defender is off-road, the Wrangler is superior in that department.

 

You're mistaken that I bought a new Defender. I did not. I have long owned a Land Rover made in the era when they were the best 4x4 by far. The emphasis was truly on offroad ruggedness, capability, and utility and there was no concession to vanity. The Wrangler Rubicon has only more recently become as capable or even more capable provided a lot of aftermarket parts, but the new Land Rovers for decades now have just added complexity, luxury, on-road performance, expense, glossy paint, and other frippery.

 

Land Rover like all car manufacturers are about making money.
Sadly these days it's vanity that sells vehicles. Just look at the vehicle advertising on TV.

Can you imagine the complaints if Land Rover had made a traditional 4x4 with live axles and a ladder chassis, no media screen, recirculating ball steering and an interior you can hose out?

There's enough complaints about the lneos Grenadier steering being "imprecise" and "not like a car" and the interior being "not what's expected in a luxury SUV"

Land Rover are shifting as many new Defenders as they can produce. They'll see that as a successful vehicle.

l would have loved them to have produced an old style Defender brought up to date. But that's what lneos have done so now you have a choice.

 

My mistake on buying a current Defender. However, the previous Defender was not the best 4X4 by a long shot in its day. The Wrangler, G Wagon etc have been more capable off the showroom floor for quite some time. Also, despite the marketing JLR has embellished with the new Defender, what is true is that the new Defender is the most capable Land Rover JLR has ever produced. Far more capable off the showroom floor than the previous Defender. That’s not to say the current Defender is the best 4x4 on the market. The current Wrangler, Bronco and G Wagon are all superior off-road.

 

IMO, the current Defender is unmatched in its overall capabilities. For the money, I have not found a better vehicle off the showroom floor that has the tech, fuel efficiency, comfort, luxury and off-road capability for the price.

 

The previous Defender was just a Series body on the Range Rover chassis. Similarly, the Discovery 1 was just a new styled body on the same Range Rover / Defender chassis/suspension/drivetrain. What the Discovery did was move the spare tire out and raise the roof to create more cargo space. From 1970 until the TJ and JK Wrangler were introduced, the Rovers were the best. The TJ and JK could be considered peers in offroad capability, but they had serious weaknesses, especially the axles, and they didn't have a properly sealed cabin. The TJ didn't offer four proper seats and doors. With the help of a far more extensive aftermarket, the JKU was the first 4-seat 4x4 that I could believe was more capable than the Land Rover, and by the time of its introduction, the Land Rover had ceased to offer their most capable chassis in the US market.

The assertion that late model, independent suspension, low-profile tire Land Rover models are more capable than the old ones is unbelievable. There is simply no way to get traction out of those low profile tires. There is no amount of wizardry that can create traction where there is none. The new models can't even keep the wheels on the ground in mixed terrain.



The G Wagen is a radius-arm suspension on both ends, like the P38 and Discovery 2. It's no more capable than those Land Rovers. It's helped by factory-equipped lockers, but otherwise, it's not impressive for anything but the AMG farkles and the prices that keep it exclusive to celebrities, at least since it was perverted from the original Puch.

 

The lack of front or rear lockers on early Land Rovers is a significant reason why they are very limited in off-road capability. It’s not even close. Also, they lacked suspension articulation so they didn’t do a stellar job keeping wheels on the ground either.

Wranglers, Broncos and G wagons out perform old and new Defenders off-road because of superior suspension articulation and they have front, center and rear lockers. The current Defender can be equipped with a factory rear locker, however, it’s a clutch type that doesn’t lock solid like its peers. Still far better than nothing and paired with the terrain response electronics, the current Defender as well as the current Discovery and Range Rovers are far superior to any of the old model Land Rovers.