Currently, Land Rover says the Defender will end production in February 2016. So, I thought I’d better shoot a video on this most iconic of off-roaders.
Is it really goodbye for the Land Rover?
That said, as I ponder in this video, it seems Land Rover actually is considering keeping it in production elsewhere in the world. Sadly, I think it would still be the end of European sales – it’s becoming a struggle to make this simple, rugged 4×4 green enough to remain in production – especially when a mere 14,000 were sold last year. While there is still a market for this simplistic icon, it’s a very small one. Japanese pick-ups are proving popular with farmers as, dare I say it, they are often (but not always) more reliable.
But, all good things must come to an end. I’ll be sad to see the Land Rover go, but many thousands of them will live on.
HubNut - celebrating the average! 
Sad to think that the very qualities that made the Defender such a success (easy to adapt, easy to fix, excellent off road) are the same qualities that now count against it. Landrover has got a hell of a challenge to repeat the success but still make the new model refined for today’s customer, NCAP 5 safe and make it Euro 6 compliant. Can’t wait to see how they’re going to do it. One thing’s for certain. The new model won’t have the same tonka toy ‘repairability’ for the home mechanic as the old Defender did.