LR avoiding showing concepts (also - DC100 is NOT new Defender)

[FridgeFreezer]

This is kinda interesting - LR avoid showing concept vehicles until quite late due to Chinese copycats:

Quote

From Autocar:

“We’re nervous about showing show cars a couple of years out as you can be copied just like that,” McGovern said last week in London at the reveal of the revised Range Rover. He added that there was a need to protect the huge investments that go into the development of new cars, which are anywhere between £500 million and £1 billion, depending on the project.

Land Rover has not shown as many concepts as other brands in recent years. In 2014, it used the Discovery Vision to preview the new family of Discovery models, including the flagship fifth-generation Discovery itself.

It also started the process of replacing the Defender with the 2011 DC100 concept, a model that will now have no bearing on the production car due in 2019. A second, more accurate concept version of the Defender would appear unlikely based on McGovern’s comments, backed up by the fact that there was no concept version of the recent Range Rover Velar, the most recent example of an all-new Land Rover model.

 

[landroversforever]

That doesn't surprise me when you see the copies of ones like the Evoque.

I'm sure I read it on here somewhere, or might have been facebook.... story of some plastic molded product made in china... there were copies at some trade expo before the originals had even been released! There will always be a problem with the chinese copying stuff, they see it as an honour that someone thinks its good enough to copy.

 

[FridgeFreezer]

Yeah that was on here on a recent thread. The perils of manufacturing abroad!

[Daan]

I reckon I have seen the new defender prototype in white and black painting though.

[landroversforever]

And no pictures Daan? 😜

[Daan]

I didn't have time to get my phone.

[FridgeFreezer]

So can you describe it at all Daan or was it too camo'd up to make out? Could you say if it looked close to any of the various prototypes posted so far?

[Daan]

It looked like a DC100, but less curvy.

 

Daan

[steve_a]

I heard a tall tale about someone who was manufacturing a specific seal, they sent a prototype to China with a couple of holes, I think it was to evaluate the quality of the production.

The next minute this seal was being sold all over the place, but complete with the holes so that it didn't work... 

[BogMonster]

I thought they had come up with a scheme to avoid Chinese people copying the new Discovery by making it butt f***ing ugly. I saw the first one here in the FI in the flesh the other day, it looks just as bad as the photos. Especially in orange. I will never buy one, having owned three DIscoverys, the last two of them purchased new. They have totally lost the plot, so if the new Defender does exist (which I doubt) it will probably look like Postman Pat's van mated with a skip anyway.