I enjoy your stream of consciousness, but I believe the issue can be summed up in two perspectives.
1. The more developed and densely populated a nation/market, the more efficient and convenient its product offerings are to fit everyday life. The market in much of the world has developed a lot since 1948, and we're pretty far on the graph away from Australian and Africa, close to Europe, but not quite. Nothing new here.
Eh...
One thing new, there...
You certainly know how to sweet talk, but I'm not going to drop
all the way down the causal ladder on this one, because there is a very important rung that had a lot to do with all of this; a rung upon which a vast portion of our population still support themselves to this day:
I'd agree up until the point that the World Wide Web was blindly embraced by the average person, which was around 2002, or so. That really fucked up historical precedent, and gave the insulated members of society a technological teat from which to hang while they made poor decisions. Computers, as it turns out, were the answer to all the world's problems...
Everything goes back to that day; specifically the idea of cramming a thousand shitty, half-ass functions into a device that's too small to efficiently use. The second that iPhone launched and put what they
thought was the Web in their pocket the world changed; and not in a good way. Jobs was right where he needed to be: Standing in front of tens of millions of new, ignorant tech addicts with no map for the modern world.
Smart phones existed long before that (I had a few), but it was a matter of being at the right place at the right time with something that masked away the confusion; much like a plastic engine cover. Popping the hood isn't so scary when all you see is a hole for more oil, after all. It's interesting that the practice of covering engines began to become an art around that same time, isn't it?
Regardless, it should have all taken
much longer. The problem throughout modern history is impatience and an obsession with innovation at any cost. You put a company like Land Rover in that world, and it's like dropping a guy with severe OCD in Vegas for a week. To paraphrase Jeff Goldblum: They can't not touch.
That world is driven by convenience and instant gratification; quick shots of dopamine, as it's been described. From idle games to streaming films, to the extreme difficulty of actually purchasing a full album nowadays and issue of being surrounded by cameras constantly, it all informs vehicle design.
What you wanted was a tool box, but what you got was a smart phone. That's no accident.
The Defender wouldn't have worked in a corrected society, either, mind you. It was still an out of date tin can; potentially the worst vehicle in production anywhere in the world during it's last days. It's not like the Discovery, which was honestly closer to what the Defender should have been, at that point. It was truly Yesteryear Motors' top product.
2. Due to JLR's chosen strategy, as of 2015 their lineup consisted of a dozen designer purses and an AK47 (1949). It was hilarious to see a Defender in a showroom amongst Range whatevers and pretty LR4s. In their eyes, a Jeep/G-wagen take on the Defender wasn't an option. You just can't convince rebels to buy weapons from a purse store, and the weapons kind of scare the yummy mummies away.
Well, they've clearly never been to a
proper purse store. If I can't have a free RPG and two bricks of questionable cocaine with my imitation Gucci handbag, I'll buy it somewhere else.
That was indeed quite amusing, though. What really puts it into perspective was my trip to test drive that 4Runner and the disappointment bordering on anger and insult. They had an FJ40 in the showroom. Now, that's funny because that's about as advanced as the Defender ever got, and it's in there as an antique display with a plaque and a "do not touch" sign.
In 2016 (supply was probably petering out at that point, but you get the idea), that would have been no different than a Land Rover dealership, aside from the fact that the FJ40 would have a window sticker, a warranty, and a brochure. It truly was insanity; a company that had given up on trying to find a way around it and eventually decided to just throw it away.
To be fair, it's the smart move when a project gets like that, but it would have been better to partner up with someone and hope to gain in defense and private sector contracts on the side. "Defender" was still
(somehow) strong enough to support it's own brand; it still is.
I really wanted to scribble "token" on a piece of paper and put it under the wiper of that FJ40, as if it's presence somehow legitimizes the other nonsense.
Cheers,
Kennith