Land Rover: Attacking Defender

Land Rover’s venerable Defender is arguably one of the most easily-recognisable vehicles on the planet, so designing the DC100 concept that points to its successor was obviously no cakewalk. Chief designer Oliver Le Grice elaborates on the challenges he faced in this motoring.com.au exclusive

What’s the most difficult assignment a Land Rover designer could be tasked with? How about coming up with a modern-day interpretation of the iconic Defender, which has been around in myriad – albeit fundamentally unchanged – guises since 1948?

The DC100 concept – unveiled at September’s Frankfurt motor show and subsequently wheeled out in subtly-modified form at the recent Dubai show – is Land Rover’s bold take on a 21st century Defender, and chief designer Oliver Le Grice says the key to the project was to tread the fine line between tradition and modernity.

“As a designer it’s a fantastic opportunity to get such an iconic product and try and reinterpret it,” Le Grice said. “The excitement and adrenaline that a project such as this gives you is what every designer wants.”

“What we really had to be careful about was that – given we had such a well-loved and well-understood product in the Defender – a lot of people have a strong emotional attachment to it. So what we had to do was to make sure we had the balance right between recreating that as well as creating something vibrant, modern and more relevant to tomorrow’s market. That was the biggest balance point we had to find.”

Le Grice added that preserving the inherent simplicity of the Defender was one of the key design parameters.

“Even though you see the car has a cover over it (it was yet to be unveiled at the Dubai motor show), its outline is so instantly recognisable,” he said. “If a child can see it and draw it, that’s the way it should be. It’s one of the most well-known shapes of any vehicle in the world. That’s something we had to hold on to. It’s all about the stance of the car and approach and departure angles. These are all things that convey the (off-road) capabilities of the car.”

According to Le Grice, exactly what percentage of the DC100 will carry through to the eventual production reality is still open.

“We put the concepts out at Frankfurt and said very clearly these were studies, in terms of the direction we could go. We want to really get some feedback from people regarding how they feel about the vehicle,” he said. “There’s obviously going to be a good period of time between the concepts and whatever production model eventuates, so we can take on board what people are saying and get a really strong idea of where we want to take it.

“As a concept I think we’ve got the basics right… the outlines and proportions and so on. Whenever you recreate something that’s so well loved, there are going to be those who think any change is too much – you’d expect that from diehard enthusiasts who loved the original Defender very much. But generally speaking, people see it and say to themselves ‘that’s a very credible reinterpretation of the original’.  I think it’s right to quote a figure of two per cent in terms of any negative comments of how people perceived it.

“What we showed in Frankfurt was deliberately designed to appear like a concept vehicle,” Le Grice conceded. “Things like the low-profile tyres got people questioning whether the off-road capability of the Defender was still there. But you’ll see when the covers come off this car that things like that have been addressed. We’ve made a special effort to adapt to this market. We’ve done things like fitting high-profile sand tyres, and the colour is different (the Dubai concept sported Fuji White paint with a Santorini Black roof).

Le Grice says the aim now is to gradually evolve the DC100 into something that will more closely resemble a showroom-ready product.

“As far as exterior design is concerned, everything is theoretically doable in production form, but with the Frankfurt concept we were really pushing the boundaries in terms of interior design. It’s all doable, but the question is whether it’s doable at the right price and appropriate for the product.

“In terms of the exterior, the lamps are quite conceptual – and that’s for a reason – so those sort of things will be held back, but none of it is rocket science. It’s all very doable. All the shut lines and the way the body is constructed are very realistic.”

Although the Defender replacement isn’t due until 2015 (give or take a year), Le Grice says it won’t be a watered-down version of the DC100 – in contrast to the 2005 Range Rover Sport, which was a heavily diluted version of the Range Stormer concept that preceded it. “Land Rover’s current philosophy is to show what you can actually deliver,” he asserts.

Although the all-new Defender’s platform is yet to be officially confirmed, Le Grice suggests the existing model’s rugged steel ladder-frame chassis will make way for a high-tech aluminium architecture.

“As a company, we’ve said before that we’re strongly linked to the lightweight aluminium structure, so you’d have to expect that a lot of that will come through into the products,” he said. “That’s part of updating the current car. We’ll retain the capability of the Defender, but do it in a more lightweight and eco-friendly way so fuel consumption and running costs are reduced.”

“The DC100 Sport concept was all about attracting attention and showing a different kind of Land Rover,” he said. “The brand is understood by many people in a certain way – they see the utility and functionality, but the aspects of fun and exuberance are not commonly understood.

“Land Rover has to stand for some of that going forward. We want to make the point that capability and leisure, excitement and fun are all embodied in that product. It’d be nice to think that sometime in the future we’d see something like that,” Le Grice said.

“There’s enough space there for a folding hardtop. I’m not sure if we opened it up at Frankfurt, but there’s a lot of space in the rear luggage bay. We’ve built this car to comply with some known parameters – things like base of screen and all of the front structural aspects – so it’s very much production orientated.”

Le Grice says the fact that the DC100 and DC100 Sport are the same below the waistline emphasises the modularity of the basic design. “Part of the reason for showing two cars at Frankfurt was to convey the adaptability of that design language and illustrate that you could create a number of concepts from it. This is important as the Defender was available in a number of different formats.”

NEXT-GEN RANGE ROVER
Conceiving a next-generation Range Rover is barely simpler than conjuring up a modern-day Defender as, in Le Grice’s words: “That’s another vehicle where you’ve got so much product to try and hang on to. Range Rover is now a very mature product. To try and break the mold now would be foolish.”

“You’ve got to try and retain all the positive attributes of that car but make sure that, in terms of technology and so on, it absolutely fits in for the next 10 years. A lot of manufacturers try to use styling and tricks to sell you their cars, but with Range Rover it’s got to be the opposite,” he stressed. “It should be about longevity and a sense of the car being above all that. It’s a fine balance to tread. You’ve got to move forward in an evolutionary way but provide those little sparks of interest to capture people.

Le Grice said with the recently-launched Evoque there was a strong emphasis on making the car appear light and nimble given that it’s geared more for an urban environment: “Whether you need to go that far with a Range Rover or Range Rover Sport is debatable,” he added. “What people are interested in is that the technology allows you to get more miles per gallon. There’s a sense of solidity that you need to preserve. I think you need to communicate sustainability, but you don’t need to go too far with it. Again, there’s a balance that needs to be achieved as the Range Rover’s visual presence is vital to it.”