Autocar Agosto 08, 2018

NEITHER PLUMMETING DEMAND for diesel nor Brexit have stopped someone from buying a car today in a showroom, however challenging they are for the car industry to deal with. But some cars are now being forced off sale thanks to something else entirely: the Worldwide Harmonised Light Vehicle Test Procedure (WLTP). WLTP is the long-promised more real-world-representative fuel economy figure that each individual version of a car must be certified with. No more 60mpg quoted in the sales brochure, when the reality is more like 40mpg. WLTP, as we reveal this week (p17), is claiming plenty of victims as car makers scramble to comply: entire models and engines have gone, choice within a range has been made more limited and, in some cases, specs have been downgraded. The Volkswagen Golf…

“Despite its utilitarian roots, the new Defender will be pitched as a premium offering” The new Land Rover Defender will be a family of vehicles based around two wheelbase sizes, with versions ranging from basic utilitarian vehicles up to luxurious high-end models. The mission for Land Rover’s reborn icon is to offer the “biggest breadth of capability of any model to wear the badge”. The revived nameplate, set to be officially revealed within the next year, is Land Rover’s most anticipated new model in decades. The firm had previously considered unveiling it this year, to coincide with Land Rover’s 70th anniversary, but the imminent launch of the Mk2 Evoque is understood to have made this less likely. Despite its utilitarian roots, the new Defender family will likely be pitched as…

However iconic a name and shape the Defender has, it is no divine right to success. Which is why details about the new car have taken so long to come out: Land Rover has had to build a business case that ensures the Defender will be a commercial success well into the next decade. In the decade or so since the all-new Defender’s gestation started, Land Rover sales have grown exponentially, spearheaded globally by an ever-growing Range Rover line-up. Why so many Range Rovers? It’s a nameplate and brand with even greater appeal than Land Rover itself in some markets, particularly in the US, where, much to the firm’s frustration, Range Rovers are colloquially known as Rovers. Land Rover hasn’t yet replicated that success with the Discovery as a range…

Land Rover has worked through numerous iterations to reach the right shape for the new Defender and it may have settled on taking the icon back to where it began. Sources suggest JLR bosses are looking at the sales success of modernised classics like the Mini and Fiat 500 and will take a similar approach for their new car. Company chiefs have always made much of the fact that the original Land Rover’s profile is so distinctive that it can be represented clearly in just in three strokes of a pen, yet it seems to have taken years of experimentation for it to dawn on these people that potential buyers simply want this to continue. Jeep has known this all along: even after a dozen iterations, its Wrangler’s profile and…

Defender 90 Entry-level three-door will be built on the short wheelbase MLA platform and will focus on sporty driving dynamics and the kind of utilitarian prowess the Defender is famed for. Defender 90 with a removable roof Offering the Defender with a removable roof would be a nod to the model’s roots and pitch it against Jeep’s Wrangler. Defender 110 The long-wheelbase version of the Defender will be positioned as a premium model in order to capitalise on the higher prices that large, luxurious SUVs can command. Defender pick-up Likely based on the long wheelbase architecture, this model would enable JLR to profit from the fast-growing commercial vehicle sector, competing with the likes of the new Mercedes X-Class. Pick-ups are increasingly popular in the UK due to their different tax…

One statistic jumped out of the UK automotive manufacturing figures for June. The number of cars built in the country for sale here, rather than for export, fell by 47%. Have we really fallen out of love with UK-built cars that much? The answer is tied up in a rollercoaster of a half year for car sales in this country. “I’ve been in the industry 26-27 years and I can’t recall a year with so much distortion,” said Daksh Gupta, chief executive of the Marshall Motor Group, which has 99 dealers in the UK. On the surface of it, UK car sales are holding up pretty well considering the disruptive forces of Brexit, a weak pound and the flight from diesel. The numbers for January to June of this year…