DEFINING THE DEFENDER – 1990 – 2016
Introduction
The Defender was introduced to the World at its launch on 11 September 1990. The equivalent short and long wheelbase models were formally named the ‘Ninety’ and ‘One-Ten’ respectively. However, with the impending release of the all-new Discovery, description of this aspect of Land Rover’s product range by reference to an approximation of its wheelbase was looking anachronistic in the extreme. The need was recognised by the company to produce a range name that would create clear water between the legacy Land Rover and its more youthful pretenders. Focus groups reacted very well to one of the project names, “Defender”. However, unfortunately for Land Rover, that trade name was already legally owned by Midland’s specialist vehicle manufacturers, Rubery Owen. But anything can be achieved at a price – after an exchange of an undisclosed sum, all rights to the brand name “Defender” were acquired by Land Rover. The rest is history.
We have explained elsewhere in the telling of the Land Rover story that the evolution of the Land Rover was hardly rapid. Some might even say glacial! This was due in no small measure to the very limited development funds which were committed over time by Land Rover towards its anchor brand. The history of the company also throws up odd examples where successful development opportunities had to be passed by for want of factory space and other seemingly inconsequential, but non the less incapacitating, practical considerations.
The remarkable success of the alternative emergent Land Rover brands, such as the Range Rover, Discovery, Freelander and Range Rover Sport, relied on what we call their ‘Land Rover family DNA’. A belief (not ill-deserved, by the way) that the all-round 4×4 competency of these newer variants derived from the remarkable engineering sole of the company that had brought us and nurtured the traditional ‘Series’ Land Rovers over the preceding decades. The irony has not been lost on commentators that the funds diverted in bringing on these newer brands prevented commensurate development of the vehicle to whom they owed their origin.
So the “Defender” rose phoenix-like from the flames of the Series, Ninety’s and One-Ten’s. Its continued success in all its legacy markets was assured all be it that changing times, lay ahead as new fashions, a shifting customer base and ever more challenging regulatory demands each had an impactful influence on the brand. Indeed, the development of the Defender never really kept pace, let alone got ahead of the game. It appeared to be always on the back foot, particularly when compared to the fast-emerging competition from Japanese entrants into its market.
From 1990 onwards the pace of change in the Defender’s aesthetic was even less noticeable. There were few outward signs of evolution of the brand save superficial matters and the odd badging and colour changes associated with special or limited editions, each released in turn to stimulate market interest in the Brand. But, most importantly to the particular interest of LRHC, the chassis-based build philosophy was maintained throughout its life and the Defender continued the Series Land Rover’s reputation as being the ultimate vehicle that lent itself to special treatment and adaption by commercial users and the leisure enthusiast. We therefore continued to see a wide variety of Land Rover derivative vehicles sold by Land Rover’s own Special Vehicles Division and by third party after-sales automotive specialists.
Below the surface there were a number of seminal moments, largely defined by changes to what sat in the engine compartment. So we use these changes of engine type to define the definitive chapters in the Defender ‘era’ that spanned some 26 years.
The 200 Tdi : 1990 – 1992
An outcome of the ‘Gemini 1’ project headed by newcomer to Land Rover’s engineering team, Les Wilkins, the 200 Tdi was Land Rover’s first adoption of a directly injected diesel power unit. The project began in 1984 when Les came across from working For Leyland Vehihicles on Truck engines. The Series III SWB and One Ten were still in production at the time. Early development was influenced by Land Rover’s recent government funded engine line that was geared up making the traditionally aspirated 2.5 Ltr diesel engine. So the design of the 200 Tdi was as similar as they could make it to minimise the need for re-tooling. There was then a tug of love with ‘Project Jay’ (the new Discovery under development). Notwithstanding that the Series Land Rovers were ever the poor relation, they were eventually granted the new engine and the revised vehicle was launched as the ‘Defender’.
The 200Tdi was an immediate success with everyone except the British military. Users were offered 30% more torque and an equivalent uplift in power, delivered at a considerable saving in fuel consumption. Sales were strong despite that the new Discovery was getting all the marketing and publicity attention. As ever, Land Rover sought to promote the Defender with small cost-effective initiatives. The NAS 110 was released in the US and the SV90 here in the UK. The latter was a fashion leisure vehicle with a bespoke cotton tilt provided by Tickford. ‘SV’ stood for “Special Vehicle” as Land Rover were trying to re-define the Defender as more than a pure workhorse. A year later the ambitious V8 NAS 90 was sent to the US looking great with its externally fitted roll cage. The utilitarian market was not forgotten, however – the introduction of the 130” Hi-Cap (High Capacity) soon followed offering a pickup with a full width drop tailgate which allowed the flat load bed to carry a conventional pallet.
The 300 Tdi : 1993 – 1998
Recognising that the Military were not enamoured with the Defender 200 Tdi, even before it was finalised a further project (Project Wolf) was initiated developing a vehicle more acceptable to the military and addressing growing competition from elsewhere. This project required a beefed-up engine which in turn prescribed a beefed-up chassis and even redesigned, thicker gauged, body panels. This new power unit was developed under the name Gemini 2. It lost the utilitarian rattle and was considerably quieter than the 200 Tdi. Competition, or jealousy(?), between the different product teams resulted in the decision to fit this in both the Discovery and Defender. The space constraints of the latter required a material reworking of major components, notably the turbocharger and exhaust manifold arrangement.
However, by now the engineering team were playing catch up. Threatened by the, as yet unspecified, more stringent EU emissions limits (ECD1: European Consolidated Directive 1), project Gemini 3 was immediately announced with a view to making the new power unit leaner and meaner. Electronically controlled fuel pump and revised injection pressures were necessary innovations to achieve a ‘cleaner burn’.
The results from these two projects (Gemini 2 and 3) were then brought together as a single introduction of the new 300 Tdi. A more efficient, cleaner and quieter offering. Behind the apparent incremental changes was a major engineering re-work. Whilst triggered in the first instance by the need to improve the Defender’s appeal, the result was a great success for Land Rover offering a common power unit for the Discovery, Defender and military Wolf.
The Td5 : 1998 – 2007
When ownership of Land Rover passed to BMW from British Aerospace in 1994 there were three engines in development – the Td4, Td5 and Td6. However, BMW had their own units that could substitute for the first and last of these. So very shortly all attention turned to development of the, 5 cylinder, Td5 for the Defender. The Freelander and L322 Range Rover were fitted out with BMW’s pre-existing power units.
The innovative injectors of the Td5 were dependent upon electronics that die-hards and the military were suspicious of. However, after much development the Td5 was very competent off road and offered for the first time the infamous Land Rover anti-stall. The engine was also very tolerant to poorer fuel which added to the Defender’s credentials as a ‘World Vehicle’.
During the early ‘noughties’ the Defender was under pressure from many quarters. A policy had to be adopted to introduce change in a very gradual manner. It was necessary at all costs to avoid a re-homologation of the vehicle as that would expose it to a number of legal requirements that in all likelihood it would not satisfy. With the introduction of the Td5 further improvements to the Defender were modest and came slowly. This was no hardship for die-hard enthusiasts of the mark, but this placed growing distance between the Defender and the ever-threatening competition from the Japanese.
Other improvements in specification that were dripped into the mix during this period of the Defender’s life include; ABS, traction control, (optional) air con, electric windows, (optional) heated front seats. The top of the range XS even offered a heated front windscreen.
Sadly, by now the Defender was firmly on the back foot. It had long since had its North American market taken from it for regulatory reasons. The end of the mark was in site. To those in the know there was no sign of sufficient investment of the magnitude necessary to bring the Defender into a sustainable or competitive position. That said, the Defender was not going to lie down quietly. A number of special editions were marketed and Defender began to appear ever more often on the silver screen (most notably driven by Laura Croft in the film Tomb Raider and a whole series of ‘baddies’ in successive James Bond films). Conversely, whilst the Defender was gradually losing its traction with commercial users and the military, it was gaining resonance with the private leisure market.
The 2.4 & 2.2 TDCi : 2007 – 2016
Ford bought Jaguar Land Rover in 2006. By this time annual Defender production was down to 20,000 and the Td5 was looking overly long in the tooth. The eventual demise of the mark was patently near and there was no commercial justification (or appetite) to invest what was necessary to secure a future for the Defender. Reading the runes, an engineering team within the company looked to Ford’s own engine, the 2.4 TDCi (Puma) that powered Ford’s transit van. An engine was fitted successfully into the front of the Defender, the only apparent concession being the need for a bulge in the bonnet to accommodate the taller dimensions of Ford’s power unit.
A 10 year stay of execution was earned. The cabin was swiftly tidied up with improved seating, front facing rear seats in the Station Wagon, a radically updated dash that required removal of the (oh, so loved!) opening front vents and (the unthinkable) a heater that did transmit heat! The long throw of the gear leaver took some getting used to but the 6 speed box at the other end, coupled with Ford’s Puma engine gave the Defender a much improved performance. Not to the extent of a ‘GT’, but reaching the 82mph limiter was no challenge at all for this powertrain.
Aluminium panels were gradually giving way to steel. But customers didn’t mind. They were just so grateful that defenders were still being made.
In 2012, the 2.4 Ltr shrunk to 2.2Ltr. Good engineering delivered no compromise to power and torque, however the lower capacity kept the car within the threatening emissions standards.
Not even the new owners of Jaguar Land Rover, the mighty Tata Group of India, who arrived on the scene in June 2008, could arrest the inevitable decline of the Defender. Much loved, respected and known throughout the World. But every bit an anachronism in the fast-changing world of the automotive manufacturers. So here development of the Defender rested until the flurry of run-off special editions hit the market in 2015 ahead of closure of the Solihull line in January 2016. These were substantially unaltered in engineering terms and simply represented superficial make-overs offered at premium prices matching the outpouring of nostalgia of the moment.
In conclusion – the final curtain
The closure of the Defender line at Solihull on 29 January 2016 was much lamented by motor enthusiasts both at home and around the World. The reasons for the inability of Land Rover to keep pace with technology and changing needs are many and various. Whilst its snail-pace of development may have added to the nostalgia that surrounded the Land Rover / Defender mark, its eventual demise was prescribed many years before. The gap between the ‘here and now’ and ‘future needs’ simply became too great to fix at anything approaching a commercial cost. But one has to admire the engineering team for staving off the sad day as long as they did!
Perhaps one of the sad consequences of the company’s ceaseless endeavours to put off the inevitable is that, whilst the engineering team’s love and pride of the vehicle never lessened, towards the latter years they were becoming weary of the battle. In a magazine article Mike Gould, the Defender Product Brand Manager, reported “Fighting engineering and project management for improvements on the Defender could be a frustrating business. At the end of one meeting, one of my team said that she would be glad to see the last one in a museum.”
Tata continued to invest in the remarkable Global success of the two lead Land Rover brands – Range Rover and Discovery – with a multiplicity of sub-brands within each range. However, their attention (and resources) switched too late to the need to replace the Defender. There was a clear three year break between closure of the Defender line and the introduction of the successor “New” Defender in 2020. Recognising that the legacy Defender was failing in its endeavour to be all things to all people, JLR under Tata’s stewardship felt that they had to call a new direction and focus. Inevitably they followed the ‘cash’ and the New Defender is of modern build technique, stuffed to the gunnels with technology and offers a passenger environment more akin to the Range Rover than the rattle bucket that went before. Oh yes, it also has a price tag to match that elevated it beyond the reach of many petrolhead 4×4 enthusiasts and its agricultural roots for all bar ‘gentlemen farmers’. The target market is the well-healed rather than the legacy die-hards. Has the New Defender lost the Land Rover soul … probably … but was it another car exhibiting great engineering …. of course.
The final nail in the Defender coffin and the greatest sin in the eyes of many enthusiast is the fact that the New Defender is manufactured in Eastern Europe. At LRHC we mourn that unfortunate fact, but do accept that it is probably an unavoidable reality in this modern World. Any decision to the contrary made on strict business criteria would have been remarkable.
The hardest thing for Land Rover must have been to recognise when was the time to call it a day. Much was said and done publicly to justify their decision. Emphasis was placed on ever more challenging emission and safety regulation, the fact that the cost of the manufacturing methodology could not be recovered in the pricing model and that the raw ‘utility’ market was insufficient to underpin a vehicle of such a rudimentary design. All these comments were simply rhetoric. JLR would have done better to have simply put their hands up and said that “the sustainable future of the Group required a change of direction into more a more profitable market sector that was in danger of becoming the sole preserve of the Japanese”. There could have been no argument with such an explanation and indeed it would be the act of a wholly rational corporation.
As it is, the following facts debunk much of the ‘thin’ PR that actually emanated from Land Rover at the time.
The leisure market :-
For decades after-sale operators such as Charles Fawcette at Twisted or Chelsea Tractors were taking showroom Defenders and tweaking the drive train and, after adding a few chosen body highlights, would add tens of thousands to the price.
The top end fashion market:-
Land Rover themselves in 2018 sought to keep the Defender brand in the spotlight by the sale of 150 70th Anniversary Works V8’s. These were essentially second-hand Defenders sourced by JLR Classics. They were taken apart and put together again with bling cabins, and a whopping 5 Ltr V8 petrol unit driving through an automatic 8 speed ZF gear box. Delivering 400 bhp they quoted 0-60 mph in 5.6 seconds. But, and this is the salient fact, they sold for a blistering £150,000 – over three times that of the last regular defenders.
The heavily adaptable utility /enthusiast market:-
Grenadier
Entrepreneur Jim Ratcliff got into a bit of an arm-wrestle with JLR when they would not sell him the tooling and drawings of the closed Defender line. Firm in the belief that their remains a market for a raw utility 4×4 he put his own money behind his conviction and in 2020 introduced “the Grenadier” to the World. This is a highly adaptable 4×4 designed to serve the market sector that JLR were advising no longer exists. And guess what it looks remarkably like … a Defender! Time will tell who is right as the Grenadier is promised to be on the market from late 2021. Land Rover have left this market segment, so we have no reason not to wish the Grenadier project every success.
The Defender as we had come to know it was like a much-loved ailing Great Uncle. The end had been long anticipated. The only question was exactly when the end would come. The fact that the Defender era went on as long as it did is a testament to both the vehicle itself, tye resourcefulness of Land Rover’s engineering team and the strength of its loyal following. A matter that has enriched the lives of all connected with LRHC and for which we will be eternally grateful.