New Land Rover Defender will OVERSHADOW the new Mercedes G-Class says LR Designer

The new Land Rover Defender still hasn’t been revealed, but a senior Land Rover designer is saying that when it arrives it will overshadow the new Mercedes G-Class.

Jaguar Land Rover may be delivering more and more new models, with Jaguar heading down the SUV route with the F-Pace, E-Pace and now the new i-Pace, and Land Rover delivering up the Velar to fill the ‘gap’ between the Evoque and Sport and a Range Rover Coupe to push the ceiling.

But one notable absentee from all this activity is the new Land Rover Defender.

We’ve been promised the new Defender is ‘on it’s way’ for a very long time, with the Defender DC100 Concept supposedly previewing where the Defender was going almost seven years ago.

It was joined by a ‘Lifestyle’ DC100 Sport shortly after, but there wasn’t exactly universal praise for Land Rover’s efforts and the DC100 route looked to have been binned, although it took another year before anyone at Land Rover actually said so.

Since then we’ve had Gerry McGovern telling us the new Defender will be the ‘Dog’s Bollocks‘ when it arrives (that was back in 2013) and, last year, that the new Defender will ‘Appeal to a new Generation’ and that it will not please die-hard Defender fans. But still no new Defender arrives.

We have had a ‘new’ V8 Defender as Land Rover tries to keep the idea of a new Defender alive – and lots of fanfare about the Defender’s history – but nothing concrete on the new Defender’s reveal. 

What we now get, as the new Mercedes G-Class beats the new Land Rover Defender to the market, is more commentary from Land Rover about how good the new Defender will be, and how it will overshadow the G-Class when it does, eventually, arrive.

Speaking to Automotive News at Geneva, Richard Woolley, LR’s Design Studio Director SVO, seemed critical of the new G-Class and its design which has changed little, bemoaning the fact that Land Rover couldn’t have revealed the new Defender at the same time as it would push the new G-Class in to the shade.

 We might actually get to see the new Land Rover Defender later this year as Land Rover roll it out as part of their 70th anniversary celebrations, but it’s really going to have to be the ‘Dog’s bollocks’ to overshadow the new G-Class.