In regards to building old Defenders in India/Asia. I don't think this will happen, not when the Asian car makers have cornered the market with Daihatsu, Hino, Isuzu, Mitsubishi, Nissan, Toyota and Tata - they all have a range of forward control utility pickup vehicles to sell, why put all that money into moving the tooling or setting up production for an old tech vehicle that is well overpriced and has a limited size load bed - even if the price was halved it would still be too expensive and too much of a 'niche' vehicle.



Yep, totally, you look at the North American POS we get here - the Toyota Tacoma (Hilux equivalent)- thirsty V6 petrol engine that struggles to get 24 mpg, the doublecab has a 140 inch wheelbase () and the cabin is still cramped - Utter piece of junk - but North Americans love their pick up trucks.

The South American Hilux's aren't much different to EuroSpec, though probably cheaper trims and I suspect less emissions guff on them. Ford sells the new Ranger in South America with the diesel engine, but in North America we get the old crappy Ranger with a 4.0 V6 gas guzzler petrol engine.

IF (and that's a BIG if) Land Rover are able to produce a decent mid size versatile pickup, with extended cab and roomy crew cab options, that DOESNT have a small Transit engine in it (id like to see something similar to the excellent Toyota D4D 3.0 litre engine) AND they can sell them in North America and a REASONABLE price, they MIGHT be onto a winner. Also, IF they are able to offer ROW spec vehicles with beefed up (live beam) axle suspension with simple trim levels then they MIGHT take a few sales from Toyota.

Unfortunately there are lots of variables in the above and what I think we will end up with is a plastic POS with independent air suspension and more electronics than you can shake a stick at. They might sell a few - and if its not too bad I might buy one - but no one in South America, Africa and most of Asia will touch one and I sure wont be overlanding anywhere remote in one.

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Cheers
Grif

'11 KTM 450 EXC
'09 Suzuki DR650
'00 Discovery Series 2 V8
'95 Defender 90 300 Tdi Overlander
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