Grenadier wrote:

I’d happily take the doors off mine over summer

Grenadier wrote:

Philip, thank you for your list of LR products, but reading your history seems to imply your were made to work in Defs or Series vehicles but chose to buy RRs. The outlier is the S3, so I wonder if it is an heirloom rather than something chosen/bought? Either way, you’re clearly not a classic Defender owner in the truest sense with your last 30 years of ownership being at the luxury end of 4x4 ownership. So I understand why you like the ND but I certainly don’t understand why you keep telling those of us on a forum dedicated to, and monopolised by, Defender ownership (in the real sense of it: love, obsession, frustration, passion, individuality, care, maintenance, adventure, modification, more frustration) that we’re either wrong, or living in the dark ages, or macho, or masochistic, or any of the other slurs or points of view you have, when you clearly don’t live it, ‘get it’ or indeed want to get it

Grenadier wrote:

You know it all without having ‘lived’ it. And I don’t count being dragged around in LR products growing up as living it, it’s clearly never been your choice. So whilst you may prefer the cosseting nature, luxury and silence a RR affords, we prefer (even if only some of the time or as you call it as a ‘toy’) to indulge in the opposite. That’s our choice and that’s what Classic Defenders and their predecessors gave us. But apparently according to you and LR we’re wrong for wanting to do that, when clearly a huge market still remains. In this regard the ND simply doesn’t cut it. And as per 22900013A’s earlier photo, the ND simply never will. Off roading and towing aren’t everything. Whilst you may have seen many NDs towing plant machinery or trailers, that does not a Defender make. Isuzus can do that for a lot less money. But who wants an Isuzu? Certainly not someone who wants their car to have character, however frustrating that ‘character’ can sometimes be.

Grenadier wrote:

So in terms of a ND doing everything a CD can, please get back to me when you’ve also seen a ND military varient, the pizza oven, the flatbed, the sewage van, the cherry picker, the 130 global overlander, the 50 year old S3 still driving and being fixed with butchered parts in a garage in Africa, the NGO version, the toy, the one with no doors on, the gin bar, the nomad surfer’s beach home, the electrician’s van with roll-up sides, the airport fire engine, the ambulance, the ambulance converted into a camper, the 4x4 competition truck, the petrol truck, the tow truck, the one being repaired by the side of the road in Mongolia using goat’s guts, and of course Prince Philip’s hearse. But you won’t, not one.

Grenadier wrote:

None of the above really ever applied to the Disco, albeit early models were used extensively for overlanding, but towing and spending 95% of the time on road did. Much like the ND, which is why so many Disco owners are buying them and so many Defender owners are comparing them to Discos. And whilst you’re right that the majority of Defenders now don’t spend much time off road, I’d still warrant that over their lifetime far more than 5% have (LR’s own estimate as to how many NDs will be used off road), on farms, during mountain rescue, in wars, assisting humanitarian efforts and expeditions etc, off road adventures in far flung continents that the new variant will simply never see and if it does, never in the same numbers as the old variant. And, I’d suggest, that the classic Defs still running continue to see. And further, the ND won’t offer 1% of the variants and incarnations the classic Defender did and still does to anyone, anywhere and of any class.

Grenadier wrote:

What it will offer is a road biased, limited, luxurious and comfortable SUV at a price unattainable for most people. Much the same as the Disco. Oh and the Velar. And, um the RRS. Not to mention……you get my point. Wholly unnecessary addition to LRs fleet of identikit SUVs, and the termination of a unique vehicle that was still needed and desired and that made the LR name. That’s what Ford understand with the Bronco (which hasn’t been made to look/copy/perform like the Explorer SUV), Jeep with the Wrangler (which hasn’t been made to look/copy/perform like a Grand Cherokee), Merc with the G Wagen (which hasn’t been made to look/copy/perform like a ML) and Ineos with the Grenadier which HAS been made to look/copy/perform like a classic Defender, just better and more reliably. Instead LR have created a Disco 6 that looks like many other SUVs, performs like its Oval Badged stablemates and will mainly be left unchanged from when picked up in the showroom, or if they are changed at all they will look like this. Sad.

22900013A wrote:

I've heard the Niva is excellent off road too, and I've always liked the G wagen.

Does well up to a point...



or cutting to the chase:



Edit : Apologies to earlier poster ~ whole thread is difficult to keep up with

markb110 wrote:

I know Tim

I'm just glad that i did not start a post about paint drying.........Lord knows where we would be....

Try it, you never know we might end up accidentally solving the adaptor shaft dilemma!

22900013A wrote:

Even the best 4x4 in the world will have limits.