One of the most-loved and long-lived road vehicles, and a favourite with the Queen, is to cease production !
The last Land Rover Defender will be produced by Jaguar Land Rover at Solihull in the West Midlands in December 2015
A Jaguar Land Rover spokesman said today:
“Production of Defender in its current format will stop at the end of 2015.
A new replacement vehicle will join the Land Rover model range, but we have not yet announced the name nor any details of the new product.
The Defender in its current format is coming to an end and we are looking at what the options are going forward.”
Jaguar Land Rover has confirmed that Defender production will cease but has stressed a new replacement vehicle would join the Land Rover model range, which includes the Freelander, the Discovery and the Range Rover.
John Edwards, who has just been announced as the head of JLR’s new individual products division, has said that the Defender is “known and loved the world over“.
He has said the replacement would be “instantly recognised” by anyone who knows the current vehicle and the “core values of dependability and functionality” would be retained.
Land Rover holds a royal warrant, as supplier to the royal household. The royal relationship with Land Rover goes back to to 1948 when King George VI viewed the original Land Rover.
The Queen, who has been pictured at the wheel of Land Rovers, took delivery of her first one shortly after coming to the throne in 1952 and has used Land Rovers ever since.
Unveiled at the 2011 Frankfurt Motor show, are the DC100 and DC100 Sport concept cars the face of the future “Defender” ??
