Re: Can someone give me some info to refute this?

[Chris Maresca <ckm@eainet.com>]

On Mon, 1 Jun 1998, Brett Dikeman wrote:

> Frankly, Land Rover's SUV/truck division has NEVER turned a profit; it
> survives entirely off LR's other divisions(and I hear it is quite the blood
> sucker.)  On top of this, I have NEVER seen a Land Rover car in my life.
> There is probably a reason for that(isn't there a export restriction on LR
> cars?  Oh well.)
> 

Er, most of this is patenly wrong.  Land Rover has made HUGE amounts of
money off of the "SUV/truck division (it was a wholly-owned subsidiary of
BL and had no *car* division)", mostly with the Defender (90/110)  series
which was originaly developed in the late 50's and has had very few
modifications until it was dropped a few years ago.  Talk about recovering
your development costs...

As anyone who has been anywhere near a British army base will tell you, it
is a favorite and has served in every concievable duty a military vehicle
can serve.  It is akin to the US Army's use of the original Jeep.  Not
only that, but most armed forces in Europe also use Land Rover's, not to
mention most countries which were in the Commonwealth.  The ability to
repair virutally anything on these remarkable machines with just four (!)
tools [included] has been a key factor it's success, not to mention the
unique ball & socket wheel to hub couplings which give a huge amount of
travel.

Land Rover is so successfull, in fact, that BMW decided to buy them.

As for never having seen a Rover, if you've seen a Sterling, you've seen a
Rover car.  BTW, many, many incredible cars are not imported into the US
because of the expense of US homolgation.  Among them are Rovers.

Besides, Land Rover and Rover haven't been part of the same company since
1982.  And the company, BTW, is called British Leyland, which treated them
as two seperate entities.

FYI, Land Rover never used a Torsen because their products are NOT AWD
drive, rather, they are switchable 2wd/4wd.  From their website "In 1950,
permanent four-wheel drive was replaced by a system whereby either two or
four-wheel drive could be selected in the high range, with permanent
four-wheel drive in the low range."

Next time you decided to post something, please make sure it is at least
factually correct.

Chris.
'90 CQ