Land Rover feeling the Heat?

[vtgrenadier]

lt's good that there's a choice.

Indeed.

I have both and each serve a different function for me and my family in ways that no other two vehicles on the market can.

@Clark_Kent - The iphone/sat phone analogy fits. By extension, sometimes, I feel like using a pager (which is where my '91 Geo Tracker comes in) and sometimes I feel like going incommunicado (I have a 1983 Saab for that).

 

[mcdoogs]

I'd love to see JLR fully re-design the Discovery. I just don't know if it makes sense to JLR.

In hindsight, the new Defender is/was something of a brand saver for Land Rover. It's well designed inside and out (Toyota certainly thinks so). I mean it's objectively been a massive sales success. But it puts the Discovery in a super awkward place from a pricing perspective given that the Defender starts in the mid 50s with the S and has trims up to the Octa at ~167k. Can JLR design and build a new Discovery (or resurrect the Series moniker or something) profitably enough at a downmarket sales price from the Defender, without cannabilizing Defender sales?

I personally would love to see a new utilitarian 4x4 at ACTUAL 'proletariat tractor' pricing. Something like Toyota's 70-series. I just don't think it's possible to actually do it and sell it in the US economically, and I don't think JLR even wants to move downmarket at all.

 

[Zimm]

They have too many street suvs and no work truck. I see the Disco name taking a 15 year breather.

 

[FlyersFan76]

They have too many street suvs and no work truck. I see the Disco name taking a 15 year breather.

My wife was seriously considering the Disco but she didn't like the 5. We ended up with the 5 but only kept it for a year. Not big enough, etc.

I recently saw a Disco 4 and wow it still looks great. I wish they kept that design and just tweaked it for the 5 instead of starting fresh.

 

[pmatusov]

Interestingly, Discovery only sold 46,433 units, makes me wonder how long JLR will keep desperately flogging, what seems to be a dead horse of a model, before dropping it, not that it's a bad car, it's just that JLR have too many like it, that are more desirable, in their line-up.

LR4 was outsold in the U.S. by Range Rover Sport in nearly 10:1 proportion, so D4/LR4 are going to be rare. Mine taught me an obvious thing - capability does not mean or imply reliability.
My daughter bought a 19 D5, which I personally find boring as a minivan. It has all the quirks of D3/D4, but no curb appeal, +shitty SCV6 instead of a V8.
It seems that JLR is trying to make Discovery appearance making an impression of a Range Rover at a 1/8-mile glance, without the substance.