Land Rover has been threatening to mess with the design of the timeless (archaic) Defender for years, and now rumor has it they've settled on a new look that we'll see in 2015. But apparently it won't look anything like the Power Wheels/FJ Cruiser lovechild "DC100" concept we saw in 2011.
Autocar reports that the "new design won't be a direct replacement for the 66-year-old original when that ceases production at the end of next year" and Jaguar/Land Rover executives are still debating how much time they want between the death of the Defender and the first sales of... whatever comes next.
I guess Land Rover heard somebody's groans when they trotted out their Toys R Us off-roader at the 2011 Frankfurt Auto Show; Autocar's guy heard from a guy who knows a guy that the DC100 is considered "a little too generic" around the Land Rover office water cooler.
So what the hell are we going to get? Land Rover will follow through with their plan to make "three families" of vehicles; the Discovery Sport (cheaper) SUVs, the Range Rover (premium) SUVs, and whatever becomes of the Defender; probably some kind of utility line I'd imagine.
We're told that whatever it is, Land Rover is going to have to sell 50,000 of them per year to be worth the company's investment. That could mean they're hoping to market it a little more aggressively here in the US, which would be very interesting indeed.
Hat tip to Carscoops!