Oops. Perhaps I spoke out of turn.
That is until the NEW Defender hits our shores at which his asinine remark will be proved complete BS.
I have a feeling many on here will be clamoring to be Defender owners. As fans of the LR4, it would make sense.
Relax hand wringers, all will be right in Land Rover World soon enough.
Ramajama,
I think I perhaps shortphrased the dealers comments. This guy was a pretty focused salesman and aficionado of Land Rover. Perhaps I assumed too much but judging by his office, rather than the little sales cubicle that all the other salesmen had, and the Land Rover memorabilia, books, and photographs, I am confident he knows much more about LR than I do or likely will. I don't think he was maligning the future of Land Rover, or their products at all. In fact he was very, very, excited about emerging technology. Especially the "transparent bonnet" options, some traction control advances, and safety features. The new Defender will certainly be a worthwhile product. The tone of his words were much more accepting of change than he was critical.
He was impressed with the current production Discovery Sport. It was marketed to them as the replacement "entry level Land Rover" and he said selling LR2's was a chore but the Discovery Sports were rolling out the door as fast as they could stock them. He was equally impressed with the Evoque and my wife is starting to eyeball them for herself.
His comments about the "...end of an era." seemed much more sentimental about the loss (End of Production) of the Defender platform, which as he said had direct DNA to "Huey", the first Land Rover to roll off the line. (Apparently they named it.). The Defender in all its incarnations, was a workhorse of their product line and as likely to be found in the driveway of a British family or farmer as it was under the **** of a British cop, soldier, fireman, explorer, celebrity, or even The Queen of England herself. He said no other Land Rover product until the Discovery/LR3-LR4 could make that claim.
I'm quite sure that as a newbie to this forum (Who doesn't even have his LR4 home yet!) there is much more depth of knowledge about this product line and their history with many of you members. None the less, the "...last true Land Rover." comment may have been posted slightly out of context here and for that I offer my apologies. He simply was stating the pedigree earned by the Defender & Discovery/LR platform in its storied history in expeditions, wars, Camel Trophy's, and such was ending and the likelihood of such a workhorse being produced by Land Rover in the future production was unlikely. He said there was a clear internal shift from the products being designed with military/farm/civil service in mind and being designed and marketed to the civilian market exclusively.
Apparently the demand for the current production Defender with governments and NGO's around the world is thus that while the vehicle itself will no longer be produced as a Land Rover the parts will remain in production for some time and and entire division will (or perhaps already does) support end users of the vehicle. He also said there was some discussion about the Denfender being made outside the UK, under license, as a differently badged vehicle. (This was already done with early Discoverys according to him.) in his words, from his own contacts at Land Rover, the likelihood of seeing a military version of the "new" Defender was minimal.
How much of that is true? I'm not really certain but certainly didn't want to misquote him, especially since he is very active in the Land Rover community and in fact is the one that told me about this forum. I'm not trying to get the guy mad at me by misquoting him or spinning his words the wrong way.
