The demise of the Defender

Only 78%, maybe rampant indigestion and lack of any Gaviscon saved the rest.

Roger

I was offered a bank staff job at Land Rover Experience about 18 years ago, I couldn't take it due to a change in circumstances. The instructors at the time looked like extras from It Ain't Half Hot Mum, all khaki shorts and shirts, hiking boots etc. When I went with a mate to a day with the Experience to drive an Evoque (he had bought one) about 3 years ago, the instructors were in shirts and ties. Think this says a lot about where Land Rover are now.
Interesting talking to the guy we had, he said their biggest problem was the Clarkson effect, people turning up expecting to be Ari Vatenen, bit shocked to be driving round in low box at about 5mph.
We had to drive with two wheels on top of a rounded mound, was told to use the cameras in the bottom of the door mirrors to see where my front wheels were, knew perfectly well where the wheels were, as it was a frosty day, the cameras misted up and were useless, don't know how people manage without cameras that look at your wheels....

Part of me would love to take either Dreadnaught or Leviathan round one of the experience sites on an open day just to demonstrate that there are other contenders for the Best 4x4 By Far!

I did a day 'ride along' before being offered the job at LR experience. Was quite enlightening, went in the storage barn in the morning to see which vehicles were 'working', I was under strict instruction not to use the handbrake as they tended to seize on. The site had a loose stone track around field perimeters to get to off road areas, the stone that had been used was shredding tyres at a shocking rate.
It was interesting how the customers liked to bang on about how brilliant LR were, but they were shown films of a disco 2 on BFG's making its way up a hill whilst land cruiser and shogun seen failing on road tyres.
Guys who worked there were telling me about all the problems during lunch, don't think any of them owned LR's, one guy safari raced a vitara..
The one I went to recently was so much more corporate, whereas the one I was going to work at was pretty laid back, a bit more fun.
Some of the off road stuff is quite challenging to show the capabilities of the car, I did a half day at Rockingham in a newly launched disco4, we were told to drive into an axle twister then told to stop, a large mirror set up to the side let you see that one wheel was off the ground, told to put it in gear and drive out, traction control cuts in and away you go. Wouldn't be anything a Jimmy couldn't go through, but you wouldn't be able to stop in the middle and then drive off!
Nothing there that you wouldn't drive in a Jimmy, it is set up to show off whatever the latest gizmo is that they've bolted on, hence the insistence at the Evoque one to use the door mirror cameras, they just made me laugh when the guy had to get out in his nice shirt and tie to wipe them with his hanky when they misted up. Some of the radio chatter between the instructors is quite telling, when I was at Rockingham in about 2010, one guy came on to ask why his i'ndestructable' camera on the front corner of the Range Rover would only look at the sky? Guy in our car reaches over and turns the radio down....

What do you guys think of the direction Suzuki took with the Gen4?

 

Having seen the available wheel travel in the newer independent suspension land rover lineup I'm not surprised that they want to show off how they cope when wheels in the air.