Last rites
Recent news has the venerable Land Rover Defender being no more sometime in the nearish future (the Tata-owned company pegs 2013). We say that’s too bad. Although sports cars (either in the flesh or in Q-car clothing) are now more our thing, we also admired trucks and other chunky, body-on-frame four wheel drive vehicles while growing up (as per the zeitgeist of the times).
Chief among them were the four-door Defender 110 (make ours white, on white steel wheels) as well as the two-door Defender 90 (yellow, with chunky silver alloys and black soft top, natch). Nay, if called for, these vehicles are still one of the very few petrol-guzzling behemoths we would actually consider owning (the likelihood of prohibitive cost of admission and upkeep notwithstanding).
Trucks (and let’s not forget those darling pretend trucks) have taken a beating in recent times (and some, including at least one of us, might say it’s long overdue), but the Defender, at least in our minds, is still one of the very few examples of this dying breed that still conjures the rugged romance of a more elegant era.
While impractical, admittedly a relic of an earlier time and place, and generally not in keeping with our urban lifestyles, they will be missed all the same.
– Gyro
Motoring Con Brio 
Question is, were cars like these built/designed for the jungle treks through the Sahara, 4X4’n in then muddy English countryside, or did the Brits know that you could never take away cobblestones in those antique roads, hence ‘urban’ jungle hooning?
-Miss Ra
bulgogibrothers said this on October 23, 2009 at 9:14 pm
Nah, these were built for safaris, the Gobi desert, etc.- not the city of London 🙂 Definitely not a poseur, this.
They make zero sense in the city. None. Get an old Mercedes station wagon and call it a day.
– Gyro
bulgogibrothers said this on October 23, 2009 at 9:23 pm