Defender Diesel Prototype Spied In Public

Someone pointed out to me a Motor1.com article with spy photos of a Land Rover that is now rolling across the United States. The article by Christopher Smith asks, "Could Americans be getting diesel?"

Land Rover. It's a classic name and fun to see they're still in the game. They haven't also been called Land Rover however. When the first vehicles were developed in 1947 it was the Rover Company. When they introduced rugged cars that could go off road. The name Land Rover eventually became a brand.They introduced a Range Rover in 1970 and began expanding options. In 1989 they introduced the Discovery model with the first Defender introduced the following year. (Early Defender below.)

The Land Rover as a company has gone through a variety of phases. They became part of the British Leyland Motor Corp in 1978 and them later went to BMW. Ford became involved in 2001 and eventually took the brand in 2006 but things shifted and within two years Tata of India acquired the Land Rover and Jaguar brands that had been under Ford's umbrella.

The one thing all these corporate maneuvers had in common was this. People who owned Land Rovers were loyal. They loved the machines, and when you bought the brand, you brought with it a lot of future buyers who were not going to go away soon. Today Jaguar Land Rover has manufacturing plants in five countries.

The Christopher Smith story begins with these prophetic words: Sometimes you get lucky. Spy shots aren’t always finds hidden beneath tarps or at shipping docks.  Sometimes, prototypes hide in plain sight like this one on the East Coast

he goes on to share that the Land Rover Defender here in the States is primarily a gasoline powered vehicle. On the other hand "this one has a manufacturer's license plate and a prototype sticker clearly visible and has a pair of exhaust tips on the left rear side. Defenders with the 3.0-liter twin-turbocharged diesel in the European Union have that same exhaust setup. Gasoline engines have dual tips with one on each side."

I can't share too much here without being accused of plagiarism, but I'll underscore that it's a good read. Check out Christopher Smith’s article at https://www.motor1.com/news/448786/land-rover-defender-prototype-spied/

Here's a YouTube embed, though, if you want to see the Defender prototype in action:

 

Could it be on its way to SEMA360? We shall soon see.

 

Related Link: Education Schedule for SEMA360