Overland Outfitters gear in a Discovery

[jscherb]

I normally hang out in the Jeep section of this site. One of my hobbies is designing accessories for my Jeeps and I take a lot of inspiration from accessories from Land Rovers, for example my homemade hardtop for my JKU Wrangler has Disco Alpine windows in the roof. I have a thread over in the Jeep section about Land Rovers entitled "Land Rover Ideas for Jeeps". The thread is pretty popular: https://expeditionportal.com/forum/threads/land-rover-ideas-for-jeeps.218029/.

About my design hobby, a number of my designs have been picked up by companies in the Jeep and offroad world, including Overland Outfitters. Yesterday they asked me if I thought some of their gear might work in a Discovery. Many of OO's products are specifically designed for Jeeps, but some work well in other vehicles - for example the bags in this post hang on the back of the seat using a zipper attachment that is held in place by the headrest pins. There's a Discovery 2 in the local u-pull so I tried some of their seat-back storage bags there.

This first one they call the Backpack Messenger bag. Like all of their products, it's made from military grade canvas with real leather accents and reinforcements. In this photo you can see the zipper attachment it's hanging from. The zipper enables the bag to hang securely from the seat back and unzips when needed to be carried away from the vehicle.

This next one they call the Cool Bag - it's an insulated cooler designed for drinks or picnic lunches. In addition to the seat-back attachment, it comes with a shoulder strap for carrying a picnic lunch on a hike to a picnic site.

The inside of the Cool Bag, pictured on the seat of one of my Jeeps. A few of MOLLE pouches and drink holders are attached to the side of the bag in this photo:

And this one they call the Zip & Go bag, it's a simple storage bag.

I guess this post is a reverse of my "Land Rover Ideas for Jeeps" thread - "Jeep Ideas for Land Rovers?" My apologies if this post is of no interest here.

Overland Outfitters is at https://www.overland-outfitters.com/

For the record: I am not an employee of Overland Outfitters, nor am I an employee of any of the other companies that have picked up my designs. I just do these designs as a hobby. I receive no compensation from Overland Outfitters from sales of their products or from this post; since I went to the trouble of trooping around the u-pull on a drizzly day to get these photos I thought I'd post the photos here in case anyone might find the ideas interesting.

 

[NorthwestDriver]

I actually follow your “Land Rover Ideas for Jeeps” thread closely because I enjoy seeing the Land Rovers and also how you draw inspiration from them. I’m sure no one will be offended if you care to share more of your work here.

Beautiful bags. They work really well in the LR interiors.

 

[jscherb]

I actually follow your “Land Rover Ideas for Jeeps” thread closely because I enjoy seeing the Land Rovers and also how you draw inspiration from them. I’m sure no one will be offended if you care to share more of your work here.

Beautiful bags. They work really well in the LR interiors.

Thank you. IMHO Land Rovers (especially Series/Defenders) are much better designed for overlanding/exploration than Wranglers, which seem to be designed for the least common denominator (offroader + soccer mom / 2 = Wranglers are a compromise for people who use them for overlanding). I do find a lot of inspiration in the Land Rover world and have done many designs to improve the Wrangler based on that inspiration.

My JKU hardtop design, for example, features a full rear door like many Land Rovers, windows on either side of the rear door and two pairs of Disco 1 Alpine windows for my roof (note they're installed wide leg horizontal rather than vertical as on the Disco; I wanted to allow a bit more sunlight into the interior so I used them that way).

But my hardtop has some features that Defender hardtops don't have - the hard sides can be swapped for canvas roll-up soft sides, leaving the hard roof in place. Land Rover inspiration, but taking it a bit further. This is my TJ/LJ Wrangler hardtop design in this photo but my JK/JKU Wrangler hardtop has the same roll-up feature...

In general, the products I've designed for Overland Outfitters are specific to Wranglers, but some like the seat-back bags can be used in many other vehicles, including some Land Rovers. And some of their products are not vehicle specific.

One of their non-vehicle-specific products that's pretty popular with campers is their "Camp Cabinet" - a hanging bag for your daily "morning routine".

The Camp Cabinet has a small bit of British inspiration... Keep Calm and Camp On .

The Camp Cabinet was actually inspired by a woman I met at the Overland East event a few years ago - she was bemoaning the fact that there really wasn't anything designed to make a novice female camper's experience easier and more functional, so I asked her what she thought would be useful and her answers inspired the Camp Cabinet. Turns out as many guys like it as women .

Overland Outfitters tells me they'd like to do more Land Rover specific products but they admit that they don't really know that market well enough to know what might be useful. If anyone has any ideas for fabric products for Land Rovers I'll pass the ideas along to them.

 

[NorthwestDriver]

Overland Outfitters tells me they'd like to do more Land Rover specific products but they admit that they don't really know that market well enough to know what might be useful. If anyone has any ideas for fabric products for Land Rovers I'll pass the ideas along to them.

One item which I’ve been searching for and turn up empty on are expedition style, canvas seat covers. Melvill & Moon (South Africa), Exmoor Trim (UK), and MP4x4 (Poland) all make incredible quality canvas covers. Unfortunately, international shipping and duty taxes often make them cost 2.5x their advertised price. While the market for such covers might be modest, there would seem be reasonable margin in their manufacture if produced domestically or imported in bulk.

Melvill and Moon UK | Luggage, Furniture & Seat Covers

We manufacture and market a broad range of high end safari luggage, campaign furniture, and handmade canvas & leather safari accessories.

melvillandmoon.com

https://mp4x4.pl/pokrowce-na-siedze...i.html?search_query=Discovery+III&results=560 (Google Translate is your friend)

 

[jscherb]

One item which I’ve been searching for and turn up empty on are expedition style, canvas seat covers. Melvill & Moon (South Africa), Exmoor Trim (UK), and MP4x4 (Poland) all make incredible quality canvas covers. Unfortunately, international shipping and duty taxes often make them cost 2.5x their advertised price. While the market for such covers might be modest, there would seem be reasonable margin in their manufacture if produced domestically or imported in bulk.

Melvill and Moon UK | Luggage, Furniture & Seat Covers

We manufacture and market a broad range of high end safari luggage, campaign furniture, and handmade canvas & leather safari accessories.

melvillandmoon.com

https://mp4x4.pl/pokrowce-na-siedze...i.html?search_query=Discovery+III&results=560 (Google Translate is your friend)

A while back Overland Outfitters asked me if I would design seat covers for them for the Wrangler. I did some prototyping using Melvill & Moon and Exmoor inspiration. These photos show some of the prototype work, in these photos nothing is final fitted and many of the details are not included yet so they look a little rough but I think the photos show where I was headed.

I also designed a seat back organizer that could be installed along with the seat covers but also could be installed separately without the seat covers:

For the prototype seat covers I used a heavy DWR (durable water resistant) polyester twill and for the seat back organizer I used the same heavy cotton duck canvas and leather that the other OO products are made from.

I also did a quick test with a bit more Exmoor inspiration, using tweed for the seat panel and vinyl (likely leather in production) for the rest; I only did a seat base for this quick test:

I was skeptical that another entry in the crowded Wrangler seat cover market would make sense, especially a high-quality product that would be at the high end of the market in pricing, and I told them so. At about the same time I told them that, they received a huge order from their largest retailer that would dominate their factory's production capacity for the next few months, so they and I put the seat cover project aside.

Since then I've designed a number of other products for them that are selling very well and taking up a lot of production capacity so the question of seat covers hasn't come up in a while. These door pockets are turning out to be a hit product for them because the Wrangler comes with pockets made from a stretchy net fabric that stretches permanently out of shape the first time you put something in them, so everyone with a Wrangler can use these:

Anyway, the Wrangler seat cover project is on the back burner for now, and if OO ever wants me to start it up again and take it from prototype to final design I'll do so and maybe Land Rover seat covers can be done at the same time. I don't have access to any Land Rovers other than what I find in the u-pull junkyard though, so if this starts up again and they want me to do Land Rover seat covers I'll be looking for volunteers for some fitting and testing.