Tag: Discovery 4

Categories
Cars

New Land Rover Discovery | Don’t Worry They Won’t Try It

Land Rover New Discovery

You have probably seen the latest advertisement of Land Rover’s unfortunate New Discovery. Why unfortunate? The main reason is the alteration of design approach in Land Rover by Gerry McGovern. After the departure of the previous design team, Gerry McGovern changed the Land Rover’s design language from a utilitarian vehicle to Mayfair nightclub vehicle.

The departure from the utilitarian design landed in bling design. Unfortunately, all Land Rover products are a product of bling design. Yes, this generates income for the business and people buy the vehicles; however, this is not the Land Rover. For more than a half century, Land Rover was loved for its utilitarian design and behaviour. Removing this notion from the Land Rover equation altered everything.

To explain this in a different way: if Christian Louboutin stopped making high end shoes and focused on slippers, what would happen? It is the opposite situation; however, it summarises the current situation of the Land Rover.

As a result of this alteration, Land Rover customers have no idea what their vehicles are capable of doing in off-road situations and they will probably never use them in this capacity. I assume there will be less than ten per cent of customers who will push the boundaries of a Land Rover vehicle; the rest will use that off-road ability to park on a pavement. Therefore, Land Rover doesn’t need to place that warning in their latest advertisement. The people who would push the boundaries of a Land Rover are already gone.


Land Rover New Discovery Land Rover New Discovery Land Rover New Discovery Land Rover New Discovery Land Rover New Discovery Land Rover New Discovery Land Rover New Discovery Land Rover New Discovery

Photo Credit | Land Rover

Categories
Cars

Cars in James Bond Skyfall

James Bond Skyfall, I have just watched the movie and I wanted to write about the cars in the movie. Because, there are more cars placed in Skyfall that you imagine.
The list starts with Land Rover Defender and Audi A4. Then JaguarXJ as you expected, then we Range Rover as usual. China sequences starts with Mercedes S500 (S550 for US market) and the taxi was a Volkswagen Passat. And we saw Land Discovery 4 as police vehicles and as a normal vehicle. I totally forgot the wrecked Volkswagen Beetles in the Turkey.
The London Police was driving Kia Optima, Sportage and Opel/VauxhallAstra. I really don’t know whether the London Police drives Kia or not! And the fire trucks were Dennis, a British classic. Later on, Bond left the Jaguar XJ and moved away with the Aston Martin DB5.
If there are more cars, I will update the post later. It was quite hard to keep up with in the Skyfall :)

Land Rover Defender
Audi A4
Jaguar XJ
Range Rover

Mercedes S-Class
Volkswagen Passat
Land Rover Discovery 4
Volkwagen Beetle
Kia Optima
Kia Sportage
Opel / Vauxhall Astra
Aston Martin DB5
Pictures’ Copyrights
United Artists, Land Rover, Kia, Audi, Mercedes, Jaguar

Categories
Cars

Goodwood Festival of Speed: Land Rover Discovery 4

Land Rover has the most creative stand in the Goodwood Festival of Speed. The production line was a great idea to see the different parts of the Land Rover Discovery 4. 
Honestly, I never seen the chassis and drive train of Discovery 4 that close. Actually, Discovery 4 has a serious, a proper chassis that you cannot find in nowadays. Because, most of the vehicles manufactures on monocoque technology. So, they are a bit like Lego. When you dissemble there is nothing and when you assemble, you have the vehicle.

Categories
Cars

Interview with Kim L. Palmer: Discovery 4’s Trip to Chernobyl

Last week I have attended the Jaguar Land Rover’s PR event and guess who I met? Kim Lawrence Palmer (Senior Press Office at Land Rover), one of the team members of Journey of Discovery from Birmingham to Beijing, however he attended to stage where they visited Chernobyl!
One day ago, I wrote about the 1.000.000thDiscovery 4’s journey to Chernobyl and I was thinking, is it possible to meet someone from the team? And it happened! So, I took this opportunity with Kim and did an interview.
We talked about the Chernobyl, what he saw, how he felt and details of the journey. Probably I will never have chance to meet with someone who visited the Chernobyl.
And thank you very much Kim to take time for the interview during the tight schedule.
Here is the interview!
Journey of Discovery is a fund raising project and here is the information.

The Journey of Discovery expedition aims to raise £1,000,000 (GBP) for Land Rover’s Global Humanitarian Partner, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC). The money will be used to support a much needed water sanitation project in Uganda(www.landrover.com/million).


Pictures’ Copyrights
Land Rover

Categories
Cars

Interview with Roger Crathorne (Mr. Land Rover)

Yesterday I attended to Jaguar Land Rover’s PR Event. I had the opportunity to experience with various Jaguar and Land Rover models. However, and the most important moment was meeting up with Technical PR Manager of Land Rover, Roger Crathorne (as known as Mr. Land Rover). Roger has been working in Land Rover for 49 years; he started from the junior level and worked in different positions in Land Rover during the years. His nearly half a century of experiences made him the most experienced off-road specialist and engineer in the business. All those years, he worked as engineer for the first generation Range Rover, and developed the four-wheel drive system, transmission and drive train. Later on he was involved with the Discovery project and also took important roles during the development.
He has a well-respected experience and knowledge on four-wheel drive vehicles and currently works at PR department to explain the Land Rover’s technologies to us. You will find more details during the interview. We talked about why Land Rover never introduced front differential lock, the details of the journey from Birmingham to Geneva with the first generation Defender and 1.000.000th Discovery 4, how he perceives the contemporary SUV market and experience at Land Rover. We didn’t skip the Mercedes G-Wagon, Porsche Cayenne and BMW X6!

Categories
Cars

Land Rover Discovery 4 in Chernobyl

1986 was a normal year like the previous ones, we were getting closer to 1990s; technology was improving, computers started to appear in real life, telephone was still the most favourite communication instrument until April 26.
I was only five-year old at that time, attending to nursing school. I barely remember those days. However I remember one thing very very very clear, Chernobyl. On 26th April 1986, the worst ever nuclear disaster occurred. A nuclear power station exploded.
I remember how my parents, our family friends were concerned about the incident. Actually, nobody had any idea about what had happened and what would happen next, but a silent wave of fear was growing inside everyone. This fear was so strong, at the age of five, I learned the word radiation and for that age it was really hard to understand what does it mean. You perceive the world through psychical objects and the scariest can be a barking dog outside your window, and an invisible object appears in your life.
Many people were talking about the incident on TV, each friend visit had the same conversation all the time, endlessly. So, I learned the word radiation and Chernobyl at the age of five.
Years have passed, we all forgot the incident. Time-to-time there were some documentaries about the incident and they were saying that no one lives in Chernobyl and it is a restricted zone. Until last couple of minutes, I was thinking the same.
But, I have just saw the press release of Land Rover’s fund raising trip of 1.000.000th Land Rover Discovery 4’s trip from Birmingham, UK to Beijing, China through 15 different countries. And they stopped at Chernobyl! I thought I read it incorrectly; it cannot be possible to send a team to visit Chernobyl. I read it again and again but, it was correct. A team of people driving Land Rover Discovery 4’s visited the restricted city and visited the exploded power station. I wish that the team did not expose to anything but the press release mention that, there is still radiation around the area.
This press release just recalled my child memory. I remember one phrase from that time “don’t drink tea”.

Pictures’ Copyrights
Land Rover