They don’t make ’em like they used to…
UNLESS YOU’VE BEEN stranded off-road with no phone signal, you’ll know the Land Rover Defender has just returned, very much modernized, after production of the old model came to an end at Solihull in 2016. However, the off-road icon’s updated design and monocoque construction aren’t the only radical shake-ups with which its loyal fan-base must grapple: the new model’s manufacturing also breaks with a tradition that dates back to 1948, as it switches from Solihull to Slovakia.
Solihull has not closed: it continues to produce the Jaguar F-Pace and all Range Rovers barring the Evoque. Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) have also invested in building “the next generation of flagship Range Rover and Land Rover models” there. Still, removing all Defender production from the UK is a big deal.
Ahead of Gavin Green’s drive of the all-new Defender in Namibia, we visited the new facility that’s busy minting the first new Defenders.
The result of an ambitious €1.4 billion (Rs 11,480 crore approx) investment, it’s located in Nitra, a city of 76,000 that lies 90 minutes’ drive east of Vienna, and from its freshly laid, thinly trafficked access roads to the space around its factory buildings, I’m reminded of those child’s town-centre play mats imprinted with a bird’s-eye view of roads and
