Spotted!

[El Chapomint]

A collection of rovers seen while on vacation in Mexico City back in November

[jcb]

Los Altos, Texas plates. 

Have "we", as in Miles, as in the royal we, ever thought about printing up some club cards that we can leave on windscreens?

 

Edited January 14, 2023 by jcb
Image upside down when uploaded... go figure.

[Mr.BlueSky]

19 hours ago, jcb said:

Los Altos, Texas plates. 

Have "we", as in Miles, as in the royal we, ever thought about printing up some club cards that we can leave on windscreens?

 

Haha! We used to have cards - I think sometime around 2009-2012 as I had a small stash of sun faded ones found in Snowflake... they were not great. 

I think this a great idea and we have mentioned it a bit in board meetings. I will see what we can do. 

I've used a couple of the ancient ones and met some cool people doing it.

[Gotrovr]

Los gatos, Friday the 13th

[SDS]

A very clean RRC spotted today while sitting in horrible traffic entering Santa Cruz from 17.

[SDS]

Hwy1 Soquel

 

[Elherbinator]

Spotted this D2 in the trailer for the movie Knock at the Cabin. There are also some interior shots in the trailer so it must be featured several times in the movie. Even looks to have an ARB bumper.  It’s an M. Night Shamalan movie coming out in February 

Edited January 23, 2023 by Elherbinator

[Mr.BlueSky]

Got lucky at Lucky's and spotted a sweet 2-door Rangie parked between the tortilla chips and the salsa today!

[yokrieger]

Spotted these in a Belgium in the same car park when I was there week before last.  There are a lot running around over there.   Saw a cool D2 but couldn't get a photo. 

[Mr.BlueSky]

Scott and I got to test drive the new-new-not-a-Defender at Hollister today! Also ran into Tim, Gabriel and Stefano while we were there.

Pretty sure it's a land rover right?

The trails were incredibly groomed to show the truck in the best light, but I was able to convince my "guide" to drop it off some ledges and depart the trail just slightly to increase difficulty ever so slightly. Overall thoroughly impressed.

The attendees were majority rover owners with Scott's range rover classic, two LR3s, L322, and L405 in the parking lot. Alongside were parked a Merc S-Class, G-wagen, Bro-coma, and a few other less notables. Interesting to people watch who showed to the event.

[lutz]

is that the starter on the bottom of the transmission? 

[DHappel]

The "well groomed trails" are exactly why I figured there was little point in going to something like this.  Or any press intro for that matter.  And it sounds like they had a driver haul you around instead of you driving?  Or at least had a "handler" in the seat next to you?  Were they not confident in the vehicle?

Actually there is one big reason I'm not especially interested in the vehicle over-all and that's aftermarket.  If it WERE a Rover the aftermarket would jump in quickly to offer upgrades.  Given it's a low volume vehicle like it is I expect it will be very difficult to modify without doing everything custom.  What do you do if you want different gearing, better axle shafts, a lift, etc?  

 

[DHappel]

I do really like how tight that rack is to the roof though!  And the cargo area looks great.  Not sure I dig the rear doors.

[DHappel]

So what was the over-all impression?  I think these are expected to be around $90K US?  Interior/dash looks a little plasticky but can't really tell.  Looking at the underside I'm surprised there are no skids or guards I can see.  And that trans crossmember appears to hang pretty low.  I'm sure it wouldn't be that hard to make something but I wonder if there will be any support?

I know they aren't positioning this as a hard core off-roader but more of a back country utility vehicle.  Of course that's where most off-roaders start.  It's then a matter of how hard/easy it is for the owner to modify for their needs.

[Elherbinator]

I would guess they would use a standard axle. Looks like a driver side drop Dana axle from the pics. 

[Tyler Mattson]

It's not a dana but is built by carraro which I guess builds alot of heavy equipment axles. So probably very well built but nothing aftermarket I'm assuming. 

[Mr.BlueSky]

1 hour ago, DHappel said:

The "well groomed trails" are exactly why I figured there was little point in going to something like this.  Or any press intro for that matter.  And it sounds like they had a driver haul you around instead of you driving?  Or at least had a "handler" in the seat next to you?  Were they not confident in the vehicle?

Actually there is one big reason I'm not especially interested in the vehicle over-all and that's aftermarket.  If it WERE a Rover the aftermarket would jump in quickly to offer upgrades.  Given it's a low volume vehicle like it is I expect it will be very difficult to modify without doing everything custom.  What do you do if you want different gearing, better axle shafts, a lift, etc?  

 

More of the "handler" situation. But they figured out I could drive and left me alone for most of it. After about 2 minutes, no more quips about "go here"  -"do that", my co-pilot? was a driver trainer for the East Coast and does a lot of work with LEO and defensive driver training. 

I think the value in going is that you can be up close with the vehicle, find flaws, what was done right, etc etc. These were also what Tesla would call Release Candidate 2 level vehicles so effectively production ready, but missing the late bits and/or final refinements due to supply chain/design delays. Overall, they were close to production ready.

As far as aftermarket, it sounds like they have already released the CAD data, design drawings, and specifications to a good number of vendors in the UK and particularly ARB in Australia. They will be selling this as a commercial vehicle in UK/EU/AU so they have a good number of orders and customers that will need aftermarket parts. (especially in the skid plate department). 

The technical guy onsite mentioned that they have recieved enough aftermarket support that they have (at this point) actually removed the OEM transmission/underbelly skid plates from the factory offerings as the aftermarket is already out designing and can do it at lower cost with better build focus.

This of course is all their PR talk, but I would not be surprised if the aftermarket for this takes off.

[Mr.BlueSky]

1 hour ago, Renorover said:

It's not a dana but is built by carraro which I guess builds alot of heavy equipment axles. So probably very well built but nothing aftermarket I'm assuming. 

Yeah Carraro axles, tremec transfer case, BMW B58 inline 6 for the U.S.

I forgot the driveshaft supplier, but another heavy equipment mfg that supplies a lot of line-type truck upfits and industrial equipment.

[Mr.BlueSky]

1 hour ago, DHappel said:

So what was the over-all impression?  I think these are expected to be around $90K US?  Interior/dash looks a little plasticky but can't really tell.  Looking at the underside I'm surprised there are no skids or guards I can see.  And that trans crossmember appears to hang pretty low.  I'm sure it wouldn't be that hard to make something but I wonder if there will be any support?

I know they aren't positioning this as a hard core off-roader but more of a back country utility vehicle.  Of course that's where most off-roaders start.  It's then a matter of how hard/easy it is for the owner to modify for their needs.

Overall, I was pretty excited, more than I had expected to be. 

The interior is arranged and put together nicely, the electronic shifter next to the mechanical linkage TC shifter is a bit odd. Cockpit - yeah it feels like a cockpit, is different with a good number of switches up on the ceiling (controls for the front and rear diff locks are located up here) 2nd row is spacious enough. Seats are manual Recaros - nothing to write home about, but not uncomfortable either.

Drive-wise off-road, I am sure it could handle anything you could throw at an LR3 easily. Time will tell how much you can modify, I could only pry the plastic wheel well covers so much before they started grumbling. Again, trail was super groomed. Snowflake wouldn't have blinked though a stock RRC would have caught the rear on some of the drops due to the big booty. I begged to do the mini sand tank trap after everyone left. Hard No.

EU bumpers are plastic, while US spec will see steel bumpers with better approach angle (reduced pedestrian protection regulations). Apparently one of the largest complaints is the bucktooth EU front bumper.

 Cost isn't up for U.S. yet, but if you punch in the EU website and build the U.S. spec (we get less offerings) you can see prices in the 60-80k british poind range.

This is including VAT and Carbon Taxes so I expect the U.S. sees prices around 65-95k USD. There should be better pricing guidance later this year.

[DHappel]

Any info on axle and TC gearing?  I believe it's set up like a Rover or G-class with 3 manually locking difs?

 

[DHappel]

And yeah, that front bumper isn't great looking.  Nor is the grill.  But both of those are easy enough to deal with.

 

[Mr.BlueSky]

9 minutes ago, DHappel said:

Any info on axle and TC gearing?  I believe it's set up like a Rover or G-class with 3 manually locking difs?

 

Axle is supposedly 4:1 according to a couple reports from treadmagazine and a few other articles - I don't think they have published the full spec list with gear ratios at the axles. Transfer case is 2.5:1.

Yes, manually locking. Fronts are electronically actuated, transfer case is still tied to a mechanical linkage in cab.

11 minutes ago, DHappel said:

And yeah, that front bumper isn't great looking.  Nor is the grill.  But both of those are easy enough to deal with.

 

The nice thing, at least appears as such, is that they have protected many points on the frame for skids etc. There are numerous threaded and bolt points to choose from. 

Steering gear is also chunky, makes jeep currie gear look like twigs.

[DHappel]

I like most of what I'm hearing.  I'm not going to jump after one any time soon but will keep an eye on them.  At the moment it doesn't fit any needs I have but who knows what I'll want in 5 years.  Might be ready to swap the L322 for a more overlandy vehicle.

BTW, do you know what it can tow?  I should look at the website and get some basic info I guess.

[DHappel]

OK, rated 7700 lbs.  A bit light for my needs unless I can drop a lot of weight as I'm about 8500 in my current setup.  Gasser is rated at 282hp/332tq - also a bit lighter than my current trok. But maybe if I build that fantasy rat-rod Series 1 and get an aluminum trailer.  😁

[Mr.BlueSky]

7 hours ago, DHappel said:

OK, rated 7700 lbs.  A bit light for my needs unless I can drop a lot of weight as I'm about 8500 in my current setup.  Gasser is rated at 282hp/332tq - also a bit lighter than my current trok. But maybe if I build that fantasy rat-rod Series 1 and get an aluminum trailer.  😁

You just need to join the 3/4 ton crew. That big deezol lyfe.