Land Rover DC100 Concept: Are You The New Defender?

Not so much here in the colonies, but everywhere else in the world, the Land Rover Defender is the iconic vehicle to end all iconic vehicles. But, aluminum-on-steel construction and tired diesel engines are finally being put to pasture. Can one of these concepts become a new icon?

The yellow car you see here is the Land Rover DC100 Sport. "An active expression of freedom and leisure." Or, as we like to call it, the Land Rover designed to be driven by teenage girls.

The blue hardtop is the plain DC100 and looks much less like the kind of thing you'd have a texting accident in while driving to the mall with Jennee and Suzee and much more like the kind of thing you'd have a Zebra accident in while fording a river in Africa. We're pretty sure that's where Land Rover wants its brand to go. I mean, you'll probably still drive it to Forever 21, but at least you'll feel, like, seriously butch doing so.

Because what you need for serious off-roading is a bunch of complicated, prone-to-failure electronic farkles, Land Rover has loaded both cars with all sorts of adjectives like automatic, intelligent and next-generation. Wade Aid, for instance, isn't that cute boy in Chemistry class, it's a sonar beacon deployed to measure the depth of water crossings. Teenage girls in Florida may actually need such a device while driving to or from their parents' McMansion after a hurricane.

And because four-wheel drive is, like, such a bummer, Driveline Disconnect will decouple the rear axel when you're just doing non-Land Rover things in order to improve fuel economy. Don't worry, we hear the system has been designed so it can be fixed using a rock and a coconut by someone with only minimal training in Elephant husbandry.

Styling cues like short overhangs front and rear are designed to make the DCs stand out in parking lots full of other over-designed, function-free, vanity utility vehicles.