Land Rover and Jeep

[Andrew Walcker]

The Freelander was designed by BMW & the V6 in it is a BMW engine. LR has long design cycles. The diesel V6 & V8 engines, the 2.4L four cyl diesel & 6 speed gearbox are there under Ford's watch. I think all the current models sold in the States were designed under BMW's watch. Ford has made drive train changes but I don't think a model designed under Ford's watch has emerged yet.

Thanks for the clarification TeriAnn. I had no idea the Freelander was a BMW design. Where do you think it went wrong? Was it because LR was sold to Ford mid-Freelander-design?

 

[TeriAnn]

uhhemmm. May I point out, lest you forget, that the 2007 Defender looks very much like the 1986 Defender, and all solid axle.

One of the things I've always liked is that the Land Rover was redesigned for 1958 and since then changes have only been evolutionary. I own a 1960 Land Rover. In 2006 I bolted a 1974 inner wing panel and a pair of 1985 Euro spec outer wing panels to my 1960 Land Rover. And yes the bolt mounting holes lined up. My door tops and left door are from 1970's Land Rovers. My windscreen wiper motor is from a mid 1990's Defender, as is my rear fuel tank filler. My rear axle assembly is a Salisbury (Dana 60 built under license by Land Rover) from a mid 1970's Land Rover. Nice things about evolutionary changes is that new vehicles make great parts sources for older vehicles.

It would be like being able to bolt Rubicon body parts directly to a Willys CJ.

Reading this thread I just learned that Land Rover's cousins, the Ranger Rover, LR3 & L2 don't have solid axles any more. Oh well, at least the direct line still does.

 

[LUISJG]

"""Wrangler/Defender hits the showroom floors instead (shiver!) """

:arabia:

 

[TeriAnn]

Thanks for the clarification TeriAnn. I had no idea the Freelander was a BMW design. Where do you think it went wrong? Was it because LR was sold to Ford mid-Freelander-design?

Remember the Freelander was in Europe years before it came to the US. Freelander is entirely BMW and all the other designs not introduced before Ford purchased LR were designed by BMW. Freelander represents the direction BMW wanted to take the low end of the Land Rover product line. Stop trying to blame Ford for BMW's marketing strategy and product designs. LR's design cycles are several years long. So far Ford's only influence visible to consumers are the new diesel engines, 6 speed gearbox and increased obsolescence of spare parts for older models. Even the LR3, the LR2 and Range Rover Sport was designs well underway when Ford bought the company from BMW.

Land Rover has high margins in their non Defender products. Defenders require a lot of hand assembly and are low margin vehicles. Land Rover's parent company decided to sell the company because total profits were not enough to pay for a new model design cycle and the product lines were in need of refreshing if sales were to increase. Also a lot of the manufacturing tooling needed modernization.

BMW bought Land Rover because the Range Rover and Discovery were high margin vehicles being sold into the same market BMW was pursuing. I'm sure they didn't want the Defender but with all the military contracts & such they couldn't easily kill the product line. BMW focused on turning Land Rover into a high end luxury brand with very high price margins. BMW poured huge amounts of cash into designing all new models for the non Defender product lines and buying more modern tooling to assemble the new models.

Over time BMW execs discovered that Land Rover needed more modernization than they could afford and the company was a cash sink hole that was draining the profitability out of the parent company. So they put Land Rover back onto the market.

Along comes Ford with pockets overflowing with cash from sales of high margin pickups and SUVs. Land Rover looks attractive to Ford for several reasons. BMW has sunk a lot of cash into tooling, BMW has done a lot of high dollar marketing to present Land Rover as an exclusive luxury SUV, BMW has developed a new genertation of models almost ready for release or just released plus is well along on on the design for follow on models. Fresh model lines on everything except the Defender plus a follow on generation of luxury high margin vehicles. It costs a lot of money to design a model and put it into production so Ford figured Land Rover would be a good investment to beef up its high margin luxury car sales. People are quick to blame Ford for BMW designs and product directions because they tend not to think about long product design cycles.

When Ford purchased Jaguar, they bought a company with old tooling and with models badly in need or refreshing. The quick fix was to merge Jaguar and Land Rover manufacturing lines where it made sense and to consolidate parts that they might have in common. So Ford turned Jaguar and Land Rover into siamese twins again (Last done under British Lealand).

Meanwhile the price of gas went up dramatically and consumer desire for big gas guzzling SUVs & pickups went down dramatically. Ford management somehow was unable to foresee this happening and suddenly found themselves with plummeting sales, a product mix that was loosing money and models in the design cycle that would not do well under the new fuel price realities. They suddenly want from cash rich to bleeding large amounts of red ink with no near term way to turn that around (long product design cycles, remember). So they looked around to find assets to sell off to keep the company going until they could come up with new profitable models in their mainstream markets. There was the British siamese twins.

The Jaguar product line had been quickly refreshed on the cheap using Lincoln drive trains & suspension. The public perceived than new designs were not up to Jaguar standards and Jaguar was no longer profitable. Jaguar needs a lot of money for new products that are up to customer expectations. Money that Ford can not divert away from its current core product design cycles.

Land Rover is profitable and gaining in new car sales but it too needs to have another generation started in the design cycle. Land Rover's profits are not enough to pay for a new set of model designs and Jag model designs. And of course it doesn't help that British labour seems to be pathologically incapable of assembling a defect free car. Sometimes it seems as if they take great glee in making assembly errors. Hence Jaguar and Land Rover got put on the sales block. Ford can't afford new product design cycles for everything and they would still be dealing with British build quality. You can blame Ford for management that could not forsee the price of fuel increasing and consumer reaction. You can blame Ford for joining Jaguar and Land Rover back together again. You can blame Ford for discontinuing parts support for older models, but that about all. The new diesel engines & gearbox are quite good.

There are 4 primary groups in the running for purchasing Jaguar/Land Rover. One is the Chinese company that purchased MG then dismantled the factories and took all the new tooling back to China. Two are investment groups who if anything would focus on high margin luxury vehicles and possibly discontinue the Defender line as military contracts ended. The fourth is Tata industries in India. They are a large manufacturing conglomerate with a well established automobile manufacturing arm. Tata Motors is looking at the American Jaguar and Land Rover dealership network as a way to get a firm toehold into the US market. They are also the only company likely to reintroduce Defenders into the US.