Can anyone help redesign the Land Rover for 2015

[Leon 23]

I am a third year Automotive Design student at Coventry University and am just starting a major project to re-design the Land Rover Defender for the year 2015.

I urgently need advice and oppinions from any Land Rover owners or enthusiasts.

All too often designers re-style vehicles, sometimes very sucessfully, but loose what makes the original examples so quintessentially important to own and use.

I am sure you can imagine, re-designing a sucessful Defender replacement is a very hit or completely miss problem to solve!

I would like to hear what makes the Defender or pre-defender Land Rovers so important to you? eg:

-Would re-thinking its overall form be suicide?
-Should it remain as simular as possible to todays Land Rovers?
-What makes the Landy so important to you?
-Should its mechnical layout remain unchanged?

Any comments or oppinions would be great, as i dont want the outcome of this project to be just another face-lift, but a true replacement.

Thankyou

[RACER D12]

To me what makes the Defender cool is its Boxy look. What ever you do keep that boxy look and PLEASE dont make the thing all plastic like all the other crap you see out their.

[SHIKOUTEI]

I don't know if this post is too late for your project, but this is my two cents worth. Most of the time, the more successfull of the new designs are remakes of older designs. As the previous post states, deffinatly keep the boxy look. Aerodynamics are something that should NOT be applied to a Land Rover. It was designed as a utility off road vehicle and it should remain as such. If anything, beefier suspension (remember utility, not looks), a cargo/passenger area that is easily accessorized. Not lots of little moving windows, hatches and stuff, but somthing that can be welded onto. These are vehicles that are supposed to take expeditions accross Africa, not some soccer mom to the local supermarket. Hence, strength of suspension and body panels is far more imporant that "dent resistant" plastic. Keep the aluminum body idea, lots of bare steel(maybe some paint or Rhino Lining?), not chrome(Diamond Plate does look good though...). Large wheel wells for bigger tires. Massive square bumpers, with some kind of structure to protect lights, and potentialy breakable things. Flat surfaces for extra storage space. Tie-down/towing hooks on bumpers and roof. Ground clearance with transmision, transfer case, and drive lines tuck up into the frame as much as possible. And do something that would look good with the doors off. Convertable between ragtop and hard top is also a plus. Large windows, but only flat glass, no curves, as it's not as easly replaceable. I don't know if that's any help, but that what I would sudgest. Let me know what you think