The Land Rover Defender To Come Back? Will This Be A Cool Retro-Infused Truck?

Land Rover has started work on its replacement to the iconic 62-year-old Defender.

The British firm has formally been working on the Defender replacement, known internally as Project Icon, for two weeks after parent company Tata Motors signed off funds for a full engineering and design programme for the car.

Project Icon has therefore been granted a place in Land Rover’s product cycle and is due to be launched in 2014.

At this stage, Land Rover is working out the positioning of the car and how it will be marketed. After successfully reinventing the Range Rover brand with new Range Rover, Range Rover Sport and Range Rover LRX models, Land Rover is turning its attentions to sorting out the positioning and model line-up of its core off-roader range....








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theoptimisticpessimist - 3/1/2010 9:01:35 PM

-1 Boost

HUZZAH!!!

pepito66 - 3/1/2010 9:13:13 PM

0 Boost

Wow I would like to see this, must be very interesting indee.

truckman - 3/2/2010 5:17:15 AM

0 Boost

The idea of the old tough truck coming back is never going to come back, for some reason all the companies jack the price up and the off road ability is vastly reduced, if it comes back it will be a princess, if it comes back as a capable truck it will be the first.

M35MT - 3/2/2010 12:30:29 PM

+2 Boost

do you consider the wrangler a princess?

I think not

truckman - 3/2/2010 1:26:28 PM

+2 Boost

No the Wrangler is not a princess, the Rubicon is awesome, although slightly underpowered.

truckman - 3/2/2010 6:43:50 PM

+1 Boost

The newer Rubicon is slightly less capable than the one it has replaced, but nothing to complain about.

M35MT - 3/2/2010 12:36:19 PM

+1 Boost

My prediction of Land Rover's US branding strategy in 2014 and onward:

*Flagship: "Project Icon" (Defender Replacement)
Range Rover
Range Rover Sport
Range Rover Country (Discovery4/LR4 replacement - also rumoured to be a 7-seat Freelander - yikes!)
Range Rover LRX

*This article says the new Defender will be the flagship, but I would assume it will still cost half that of the full size Range Rover.