I had a 1995 300tdi for 19 years here in Australia and replaced it in late 2014 only because it was getting close to needing a new clutch & it had a dodgy oil ring in one cylinder, plus getting cosmetically tatty.
I'd seen sketches of the then-upcoming D5 & didn't like what I saw.
I found only one Melbourne dealer with several in stock & bought a new mid-2014 build TDV6 for around
AUD$12,000- below list. It had everything I wanted (plus more) except no factory rear diff lock.
When the D5 - only called "Discovery", not D5 here in Oz, arrived I hated it with a passion - still do!!
LR have moved so far away from what a Land Rover "should" look like. Hopefully new Defender will look
something like a D4/D3 and be a vehicle that off-roading fans will WANT to drive across the central
Australian deserts & Victorian high plains. We can't even buy a bull-bar, rear wheel carrier, aux. fuel tank
or sliders here for the D5. A bull-bar is almost mandatory here because of the number of kangaroos on country roadsides around sundown. 'Roos make a terrible mess of the plastic front ends of any vehicle.
I'm now 70 but I'm planning to keep my D4 for as long as can keep driving. I've just bought Compomotive
18" rims so I can run BFG A/T KO2's, An Opposite Lock steel bull-bar with Narva 225 HID driving lights, A Kaymar rear steel bar with spare wheel carrier, a Brown Davis 110 litre aux. tank and A Safari Snorkel plus APT rock-slider/side steps & compressor & air-tank guards will be fitted in the next few months.
All up I'll have spent about AUD$14,000- on aftermarket gear when it's finished - not counting tyres.
That demonstrates my confidence that the D4 will be a seriously relevant vehicle for many years to come.
The D4 will be the LAST serious offroad Land Rover unless the new Defender delivers what we all want to see - a LR that "looks" right as well as being competent offroad. With the back-end of the D5 as it is it will
NEVER be a collectable Land Rover.