Steppin' Out

It's the season to give. So in the true spirit of these times I have given myself the gift of the adventure package on my new Defender 110. Behold the beauty of the decked-out terrain vehicle, people!. I am ready to take her far away from these cityscapes to where the tall trees grow unhindered by concrete. I want to feel the moss under my feet, in all its greenness, as I climb out of my roof top tent and drop on to the naked ground. The rays of the morning sun break right through making my world glisten with diamonds ready for the picking. I feel like I'm walking on water. Can this be real? Well, it clearly isn't. I don't perform any tricks with water or bread but I'm glad to have a healthy stock of both. You see, I've covered some heavy mudlanes to get here and she has taken all of it in her stride. I do have the winch  - well, it's hidden, so you can't see - but with all the terrain response gadgetry there has been no need whatsoever to resort to old school tugging. I do have some extra gasoline on the roof as you see. I am far away from insanity - geographically speaking - and inspite of a sincere weight loss program she's been through, it's comforting to know I will make it back...

 

Happy Holidays everyone and all the best for the New Year!

Sideview 3

Sidewinder

It's been a while since I posted something. Been sidetracked by other stuff. Anyway I've been working on a few different variations, but here are two sideviews that are probably worth posting. I will let the images do the talking for now and continue to work on some more. This is just the start. Let me know what you guys think.



Sideview 1



Sideview 2

Full Frontal

One thing I realized when I started on the front was how good the DC 100 front end looked - from front. If not for the Skoda Yeti rake on the frontal plane, it is quite a decent result. Having said that I do not think that it is a suitable design for the Defender as there is nothing there that is reminiscent of Defender (other than round lights - which by themselves do not save this design). So the idea here again is to come up with something that is different to the current Defender front but is immediately recognizable as Defender.

 

Sketch 1: While this is not a bad front end as such, it is somewhat in the same category as DC 100 in that it does not do the Defender trick. Besides that, it looks more former generation Range Rover (L322) and Range Rover Sport (L320). It probably could be tweaked and saved to a certain extent, but, in the end it did not insprire me enough to want to improve on this variation any further. I do like the way the front screen ends at the bottom, as if floating on the bonnet buldge. Although not very apparent, I meant the windscreen to have a high rake (i.e not as vertical as current Defender) - I don't think that works too well.

1

 

Sketch 2: Low rake windscreen but not completely flat across its full breadth. I introduced angled edges that wraps around slightly towards the A-pillar. Overall, this take is more angular and in its silhouette, I think, is rather acceptable. Filling in that silhouette is what has proven to be slightly more challenging since that grille looks like Meg Ryan's Botox overdosed upper lip. Bumper is reminiscent of Disco 3. The Disco 3 grille might have actually worked better on this.

2

Sketch 3: In my opinion, a slight improvement on Sketch 2, more " Defender"-like stance, but the grille still is not working for me. I do like the way the light cluster is shaping up. I probably need to leave an unslatted edge separating light cluster and grille (see sketch 4 below)

3

Sketch 4: Essentially a continuation on Sketch 3, but I have let go of the round lights. The idea was to have something more like the new RR's rear lights. I am not too sure that this works. Neither does the idea of leaving a space on either side of the grille. It is, however, a more cleaned up iteration.

4

A lot more to do to get this anywhere near to being half acceptable..... Let me know what you guys think.