As a confirmed Landrover anorak and huge fan, having driven them all over the world and owned a few, its sad but inevitable that the Landrover Defender production ends this week. Thus ending a production run from a vehicle, as the image shows, that is very recognisable from it's initial incarnation in 1948 as the Landrover series 1.
Or as the BBC website said earlier (didn't get a screen shot and they've updated it!) The Jaguar Landrover Defender Series 1. Just about as many inaccurate journalistic facts as is possible in one line of text 
No doubt there will be legions of Landrover owners screaming Judas at JLR for culling it, but to be fair it's certainly over due. In the 1980's it was clunky, cumbersome, underpowered with an awful seating position with off set pedals, and no room for your right arm, so you have to open the window 
On road, it is impressive as a damp squid with the aerodynamic properties of a house brick, acceleration of a disability scooter and zero creature comforts.
But take it off road, and you realise this is where it belongs. With a V8 3.5 petrol engine, shortwheel base, great departure angels, the landie will pretty much go anywhere you want, from sand to mud.
Even our non turbo military ones used to be superb offroad, with lots of torque, they would just pull themselves through all sorts of terrain.
But over the years, vehicle regulation got tighter (crumple zones in a Landrover?), until the recent JLR setup, Landrover build quality was legendary bad (Rover being the key clue), with an expectation that you would get wet when it rained, as everyone knows Landrovers leak.
Then to try and match the new wave of Japenese and cheaper imports, particularly Pickup trucks, somebright spark decided it was time to start adding elctronic gizmos, and Landorver lost the plot.
Traditionally a Landrover could be fixed by a blacksmith in a remote African village. But as soon as you got heated seats and electronic traction control, the end was near 
Outside of military applications and hard core enthusiasts, there isn't really much of a market these days for a vehicle that has had the same basic body panels since the Series II in the 1950's. Even farmers these days prefer a nice warm Japanese Pickup Truck which will happily bounce over their ploughed fields.
So it will be sad to see you go, but maybe it's time old friend 
Ironic that it took Indian owned TATA to turn the brand round into the huge success story JLR is now and put to bed all the quality control issues that used to haunt Land and Rangerovers. Why couldn't a UK company have done that?
Be interesting to see what the new Defender turns out to look like. Hopefully not a freelander/discovery look alike
