It was a big moment when the world learned the beloved Land Rover Defender would reach the end of its production run, after 67 years (in 2016). Not least for Jaguar Land Rover (JLR), which was very aware there would be an outcry from hard-core Defender fans; while at the same time being very sure it didn’t want to do a retro-reboot of the old car for the all-new model.
So Land Rover tried some shock therapy. In late-2011 it rolled out the DC100 concept, which purported to give an idea of the design direction for the next-generation Defender. It was very modern, very high-tech and worryingly trendy for many, right down to the inclusion of a convertible Sport version.
Both models had plenty of classic Defender design details, but in a very rakish package. Cue grumpy people in gumboots.
It’s now over a decade since Land Rover revealed those concepts, which did the international motor show rounds in a variety of colours and specifications through 2011-12.
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But more recently, in 2019, design boss Gerry McGovern told UK publication Autocar that nothing specific in the all-new Defender was actually derived from the DC100. The concepts were simply a radical way of getting people used to the idea of a new, modern Defender – but the plan was always to make it more “authentic”.
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“It would be an exaggeration to say the styling was effort to fool you,” McGovern told British motoring weekly Autocar. “But we didn’t create it [the DC100] to give the game away as to what we had planned, just so it could be copied.
“Ninety-five per cent of the sentiment feedback was positive – but DC100 wasn’t right because the traditionalists hated it, and it was useful only to confirm to me and the team that point, and to get the rest of the company thinking that way.”
So, genius master plan or wildly retrospective reasoning? We may never know.
