zzdcar
Home
/
Reviews
/
Trucks
/
Is There Actually Room For A New Land Rover Defender In America?
Is There Actually Room For A New Land Rover Defender In America?-August 2024
2024-02-19 EST 22:13:17

Right now there are two square and earnestly capable 4x4s on the U.S. market; the (187,111 sales this year so far) and the (3,075 sales). You might have guessed there’s a big price gap between them. But is there really enough gap in demand for another player?

Land Rover says they’re committed to and , which leads me to believe they’re bringing it back to America when the new body style drops. As of now, most think that will be the 2019 model year.

Land Rover’s design chief Gerry McGovern has confirmed that the next Land Rover Defender will look…

So who’s going to buy it?

Most Jeep Wranglers seem to be on dealer lots for about $30,000, with the nicest ones wringing up at about $45,000. Owners fall into two categories; devout cultists who refuse to buy anything else and people who want a four-door convertible.

A new Mercedes G-Wagen is sold for at least $100,000, to people who either want to out-asshole their friends with Range Rovers or are .

Socially, the Defender does sort of sit between the two trucks other trucks we’re talking about here. Definitely flashier than a Jeep, but quirky enough to avoid the aggressive ostentatiousness of a G-Wagen. And there’s just something about Britishness that oozes charm to us simple Americans.

As for acceptance in the hardcore adventure community, the question is complicated. Land Rovers have made a lot of progress convincing the general pubic that their cars are reliable now, but Jeep, Ford, and Toyota have been dominantly represented at any gathering of off-roaders I’ve ever seen.

That said, folks who do wheel Rovers are as dedicated as the guards at Buckingham Palace.

So if Land Rover’s smart they’ll price the new Defender right between its inevitable rivals. Probably with at least two variants; a “basic” trim and a “luxury” one. This take’s hot, but I’m guessing we’d see MSRPs of $60,000 to $80,000 if the Defender really does come here in three or four years.

How many would Land Rover have to sell to make it worth their time? Well breaking that down would require a lot of information we don’t have access to. But the last time they brought the Defender badge around here, 1997, it’s said to have sold about 1,500 units out of a total-run (1993 to 1997) of less than 7,000 according to dear friend and Land Rover superfan .

Today of course you can barely buy one used for $50,000. Which is why I bought a Discovery instead. Hey, it had the same wheels!

Meanwhile tells us almost 150,000 Wranglers were sold that same year (though their sales took a bit of a dump right after) and Mercedes moved 1,632 G-Wagens.

Prevailing lore is that the Defender wasn’t pulled from the U.S. market because of poor profitability. Land Rover just didn’t want to bring the agricultural truck up to safety standards that got a bit stricter for the following year.

Given the current popularity of the Wrangler, the cockroach-like resilience of the G-Wagen and the popularity of SUVs in general I would think Land Rover could turn a tidy profit with a more mass-appeal-oriented iteration of their iconic rough-roader.

Will that still be the case in 2019 when (if) it finally gets here? I guess we’ll see. In the meantime, what do you think a new Defender’s chances would be in our market today? In four years?

Image via Land Rover

Contact the author at .

Comments
Welcome to zzdcar comments! Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. To fosterproductive and respectful conversations, you may see comments from our Community Managers.
Sign up to post
Sort by
Show More Comments
Trucks
The 2025 Ram 1500 Ramcharger Is The Hybrid Truck America Probably Needs
The 2025 Ram 1500 Ramcharger Is The Hybrid Truck America Probably Needs
In addition to the all-electric , the truck brand announced this week that it will also release a engine gasoline-powered hybrid version of its electric pickup, called Ramcharger. The goal here is to use the V6 engine as a generator for the electric powertrain when the 92 kWh battery...
Aug 2, 2025
Ford Robbed Us Of The Old Four-Door Ranger To Give Us The Explorer Sport Trac
Ford Robbed Us Of The Old Four-Door Ranger To Give Us The Explorer Sport Trac
By definition, a big truck like a or struggles to be small. Even in its smallest, most trucky configuration — a two-door single cab — a full-size truck is relatively large and comes with a sizable bed for hauling cargo. But a small truck like the third-generation can do...
Aug 2, 2025
There Was Once A Glorious Compact Chevy ZR2 Truck
There Was Once A Glorious Compact Chevy ZR2 Truck
Those who saw the meteoric rise of through the 2010s and onward probably associate the badge with the . The was Chevy’s halo midsize truck when it was released in 2016, but the ZR2 badging goes all the way to the when Chevy made the S-10 ZR2. It’s gnarly....
Aug 2, 2025
The Nissan Navara Was The Overdue Frontier We Deserved A Decade Ago
The Nissan Navara Was The Overdue Frontier We Deserved A Decade Ago
gets dunked on for letting models like the languish for years. But, the truck saw a model update well before the release of the , which is mechanically much like an with a design. Outside of the U.S., the successor to the second-generation Frontier came in 2014 with the...
Aug 2, 2025
Deer Flies Directly Into Pickup As Its Prospective Buyer Arrives
Deer Flies Directly Into Pickup As Its Prospective Buyer Arrives
No square inch of the Northeast is safe from deer, as video out of New Jersey shows. A deer, tearing through the suburbs, managed to leap over a Pontiac Vibe and Honda CR-V before landing on the bedside of a 2007 Chevy Silverado — just as a prospective buyer arrived...
Aug 2, 2025
Porsche Built A 911 With Portal Axles To Go Where Unimogs Can't Reach
Porsche Built A 911 With Portal Axles To Go Where Unimogs Can't Reach
No car has ever driven at higher altitude than this 992-generation Porsche 911 Carrera 4S with portal axles. On Saturday the Porsche crew, led by racing driver Romain Dumas, reached the highest peak of the west ridge of the Ojos del Salado volcano in Chile, . That’s the tallest...
Aug 2, 2025
Copyright 2023-2025 - www.zzdcar.com All Rights Reserved