In 1998, Britney Spears launched a thousand ephebophilc ships with her seminal work – the music video for “Hit Me Baby One More Time“. Featured in the video was a Land Rover Defender – the only reason I know this is because I wasn’t interested in girls when the song came out. Now that I’m much older, I can understand the hidden subtext; Land Rover needs another ragtop SUV!
Although officially termed a “design study”, the Evoque looks production ready, and by that we mean “ready to show up in the driveways of female hedge fund scions celebrating their 16th birthdays”. The red interior is particularly vulgar, which is fitting – the Evoque shares common ancestry with the Ford Mondeo, and this car’s target customer is also newly adorned in luxury trimmings despite their provincial roots. A match made in heaven, if you ask me.
It’s no more vulgar than the Murano convertible that I’ve already been seeing tooling around.
I think it looks better than the Murano convertible, but that’s like saying something smells better than a skunk
Nice! A remake of the Volkswagen Schwimmwagen; I wonder if it can be had with a propeller and machine gun?
It looks like a Kia Soul with the roof succumbing to a Sawzall. Still, any thing convertible are good in my book.
It absolutely looks like a decapitated Kia Soul. While I’ve owned a convertible and like the idea of a convertible, very few modern convertibles are appealing. This one may be the least appealing, but it is a pretty hard fought arena.
I don’t see Kia Soul. I see a very compacted Saab 9-3 convertible. The sidecladding, the slight sweeping upwards. It all shouts SAAB but squeezed, like a photo that was compressed into 70% width…But that’s me. Honestly, the extremely high belt-line makes it hard to like but the movement to the 2-box/SUV inevitably meant bringing the convertible along for the ride.
“In 1998, Britney Spears…”
And yet in spite of all the criticism of pampering to niche tastes, Ms. Spears’ musical career is still alive after 14 years. I doubt this exercise devoted to poodle owning clientele will last anywhere near as long.
*sigh* I remember the days when to say you had a Land Rover garnered respectful nods of approval.
1968? In the US, they were underpowered and less reliable alternatives to domestic and Japanese offerings by 1971. Since they returned in 1987, they’ve been pretty much costumes for hopeless optimists.
Leave Brittany ALONE!!!!!
http://w w w.youtube.com/watch?v=kHmvkRoEowc
Remove the spaces in www
Last nights rerun of Top Gear on BBCA had the boys sawing the top off a minivan, looked BRILLIANT!
Did you ever play the “BRILLIANT” drinking game of Top Gear?
Take a shot of Yukon Jack after every “BRILLIANT” in the show.
You’ll either pass out or upchuck in about 10 minutes.
Should sell in Memphis…it even already has dubs on it.
The automotive equivalent of stuffing a drawer full of socks down your pants while simultaneously undergoing a full-frontal lobotomy.
(Maybe it’ll be available in padded.)
This car is designed for Beverley Hills and California. Land Rover will make it and I think it will sell. Ultimately the only people this will really upset is the bosses of BMW, Mercedes and Audi who will all be mad that they didn’t think of it first. Well done JLR!
Yechh. Land Rover has well and truly jumped the shark with this abomination. Too bad: I learned how to drive a stick on an old 109 wagon, and I’ve always had a soft spot for Solihull. Thanks, boys, for curing that.
The Evoque is made in Liverpool by scousers and not Solihull by brummies.
I reckon, they’ll probably sell quite a lot of these in places where conspicuous consumption is still something to be envied but with bad road surfacing.
Scousers building it eh? I bet the quality control will get even better…
Since when have people from Solihull been Brummies? Solihull is not in Birmingham. People from Solihull (actually a rather afluent town) are called ‘Silhillians’. Granted a lot of people working at the plant would be from Birmingham, but probably more would be from Coventry which is the same distance away and has nearer residential suburbs.
Solihull has been in Birmingham ever since I went there and had to listen to their awful accent.
There is no green-belt between the two, so in my opinion, Solihull is part of the Greater Birmingham area, a bit like Tokyo and Yokohama or the San Francisco Bay area.
Also Silhillian normally refers to past and present pupils of Solihull School such as Richard Hammond.
‘fraid not, Solihull is a completely different entity than Birmingham, both legally and in the minds of the residents. Birmingham, Wolverhampton, Walsall, Dudley, Sandwell, Coventry and Solihull constitute the seven distinct Metropolitan Burroughs of the county called ‘West Midlands’. Birmingham does have suburbs (as does Solihull) but Solihull is most definitely not a suburb of Birmingham.
Mybe you are correct from a semantic point of view, but from a casual, outside observer’s point of view, they are pretty much the same place; I could run between the two in under an hour and I’m not even a very fast runner.
Furthermore, my cousin’s husband is from Solihull and doesn’t seem to mind when people jokingly refer to him as a Brummy, or even a “Broom-eye”.
Also the children’s television character, “Brum” manages to manage the commute from his museum in Bourton-on-the-Water, Gloucestershire to Birmingham City Centre in a fairly short length of time and that’s a much longer drive than from Solihull.
Have they officially surrendered the task of Savannah wagon-building to Toyota? Or is this simply how they’re going to fund Safarimobiles?
I suspect Toyota won that battle some time ago, as I don’t think Land Rovers (even the Defender) are as reliable and tough as they look. The good news about Series Land Rovers is that they were easy to repair. The bad news was that they needed to be repaired a lot. Toyota ended up (I think) with a much better reputation for building off-roaders that would survive the abuse given to them.
chug drano.
JLR has officially lost its way. So sad.
I’m sure they will sell tens of these.
Since each one weighs 3 or 4 tons already that is an easy goal to make. This thing looks like a Mini-Cooper convertible with a case of giantitus.
Well …. at least with the Convertible , you might be able to see out of the silly thing ! Just drove the 4dr this last weekend . Talk about Blind spots ! I’ve worn full face helmets with less Blind Spots than the Evoque 4dr .
Having said that . Irrelevant and worthless is my overall impression of this thing
@ Axual – I’m not sure if the ” Tens ” was a typo , but if it was intentional … two thumbs up !
Finally. I found the perfect car to lean out of at a stoplight and go “HEEYYY BBRRAAAHHH…” and make a meaningless hand gesture at innocent people.
I don’t know. The doors look to be about a foot too high relative to the seats.
Now that you mention it, it DOES look like a bathub on wheels.
Note to automotive designers: vehicles with high belt lines do NOT make good convertibles. To be fair, this has the stink of the marketing department all over it.
Had to google ‘ephebophilc’. now hoping I don’t get called into the bosses office to meet IT security.