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Old 02-19-2010, 04:32 AM   #9
landrovered
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Location: Madison, Georgia
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They weren't sleeping they were just semi-drunk after having one too many at the pub with their bangers and mash.

The Land Rover story is a long and arduous one.

In reality quality control was improved quite a lot by the Ford lords and masters. They were quite brutal about improving quality at the cost of many peoples jobs. Their heavy handedness was cause for lots of hard feelings and I imagine in the vacuum that occured during the transition to Tata ownership that standards slipped a bit.

Overall I think Tata will improve things in a very positive way but implementing effective programs takes time.

Land Rover has been the red headed stepchild of British Aerospace, BMW and Ford.

In retrospect LR was much like Porsche in its culture, they made a few models and released minor changes to them year after year. The Range Rover Classic was made from 1971-1995. Over the course of its life it was improved and got better and better. Same with the Defender which has been made from 1984-2010.

Solvency forced LR to become part of BA and under their mismanagement they created the Discovery and P38a Range Rover.

Under BMW they re-designed the RR and brought out the MKIII and changed all of the Lucas systems to Bosch and improved the Discovery with the release of the D2.

I have an 03 RR HSE with the BMW M62 V8 and in spite of having 23 computers to run everything it is really an excellent car. Everything in is stamped with BMW.

Enter Ford, they raided the cookie jar and spread LR's advanced technology to its other brands in PAG, like Jag and Volvo but more imprtantly Ford increased the number of new models to be rolled out to crazy levels.

In 06 the Range Rover power train was changed from the tried and true BMW/ZF combination to Jag. They rolled out the RR Sport, LR3 and LR2 in very short order.

Design was accelerated on the LRX concept and the new Defender was in the works as well. Not to mention rumors of the "new small range rover".

Ford's aggressive schedule for new models obfuscated the traditionally strong brand identity and blurred the lines in the mind of the consumer as to what a Land Rover was and then after upsetting the whole apple cart Ford sold the comany off.

The sad part is LR has been an industry shaping marque and they have technology that will change the future of 4x4 luxury vehicles.

Think about it, in 1989 there was only one 4x4 in the whole world with burly walnut dash, heated leather seats,electric windows, electric door locks, built in telephone, heated door locks, heated windshield washer fluid, cd players and the other luxury items that created the SUV boom. It truly was the first SUV before SUV was a bad word.

The biggest problem with LR as a company is that it has lost its traditional customer base and has muddied its line of products so that the average joe can't tell them apart.

I still love them but they do not always love you back, they act out because of bad parenting.
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