By Steve (Steve2) on Friday, March 30, 2001 - 06:48 am: Edit

8:59am heading south bound ocean ave in santa monica, just after turning left from west bound wilshire blvd. black with s1 lamps and front grill sorta stuck on. the car is larger (longer/taller?) that the current rangie and has the 'feel' of the orig rangie in appearance with taller green house (like the old montero esque...)

this mule did not have the bulbous fender flares of the german mule seen in lrm last year. -

just had a thought - maybe this was not the new rangie but the s3 disco? could it be?

steve

By wisker on Friday, March 30, 2001 - 06:58 am: Edit

Road and Track ran a spy photo of the 2003(?) range. Independent suspension was visible and they mentioned the top trim level could get the BMW V12. Just rumors right now. I'll stick with my S1 disco.

By Justin on Friday, March 30, 2001 - 08:40 am: Edit

I heard about that V12.....whoa....cool.....

By Bill Gill (Bluegill) on Friday, March 30, 2001 - 09:50 am: Edit

I heard about that independent suspension.....whoa....sucks....(V12 is cool)

By ???? on Friday, March 30, 2001 - 12:18 pm: Edit

I heard that it will have new "space-saver" axles developed by Dana(cost like $2million to design and create) and a retro look to it with a lot of design cues from the classic range rover(like the round headlights and a relatively low roof line). I think(hope)IFS got scrapped. I also heard this wild rumor:the next Range Rover and the next Lincoln Navigator will be built on the same platform(and share the same engine), and the next(and last) Disco will share the Explorer platform(doesn't that suck)!!!

ps. there won't be a BMW V-12 on the next Range Rover, Ford owns LR now, Ford only bought the remains of the BMW 4.4L V-8. They didn't buy all there current engines and there engines to come.

By nadim on Friday, March 30, 2001 - 12:24 pm: Edit

i think they (ford) should leave us the hell alone!.....get back to that trusty ladder chassis, that V8, and those live axles!...
that is what a land rover is...not some leather wrapped explorer or navigator!

By Steve (Steve2) on Friday, March 30, 2001 - 01:11 pm: Edit

i heard ifs and the v12 were "for sures" and would be offered for a few years until replaced with ford or jaguar units. unfortunately the market dictates an easier to use vehicle - so a plush electronically controlled ride (based off of the x5 4.4i platform makes sense), and other bmw sourced items should appear. lighter steering and foot pedal pressures no doubt! the top of the line v12 rangie was said to be in the 85k range with possible special order variants to 115k per copy (yikes!)

the good news is that is still has the family look of a very upmarket and "british" suv. as far as platform sharing - vw audi use the a4 (not the audi a4) 'pan' for the passat, and audi a6. the beetle and tt and golf/jetta are the same derivative of the a4 platform - so it might not be all that bad.... (blasphamy !!)

steve

By wisker on Saturday, March 31, 2001 - 06:01 am: Edit

I did get a chance to drive a friend of mine's X5 for a couple of days and the handling and acceleration was incredible. I was also well aware that accidentally running over flowerbeds was about the only off roading it was ever meant for. The X5 is a great mall crawling soccermom truck that dad can enjoy because of the German performance stuff. If that's what the new Range is then it's sad from a heritage standpoint, but it will fill a market nicely. Everyone read the recent posts about diff-locks rusting because they were never used.
My only hope is that these changes are exclusive to the Range and that Ford will still produce at least one model with straight axles and the off-road ability that made this marquee what it is.
Hell maybe they'll integrate the Defenders suspension with the F-series work truck price and part availability then use the 5.0 from the 90's mustang for power and . . . well, maybe not.