I am going to go out on a limb here, and state that 2026 has offered more surprises from JLR than any other year this century. It has also led me to being wrong. I’ll admit it. But more on that later.

I have been following Land Rovers history and developments ever since the OneTen was launched back in 1983. I can remember making my dad stop as we passed a dealership in Wales whilst on a family vacation, so I could get the brochures of the new vehicle and also get an up-close and personal look at it. I have been tracking Land Rovers developments ever since. I look at the spy shots of new vehicles in the motorising press with interest to see what is being developed and I used to think I had a pretty good idea of what was going on and what was coming next.

Electrification, for example, has been coming for a while, and some may say that JLR are quite late to the party, but the all-Electric Range Rover that was recently announced, has been on the cards for some time. History also tells us that shortly after a Range Rover is launched a Range Rover Sport variant follows, so no surprises for the Range Rover Sport EV either. What did take me by surprise, however, was the Range Rover GT – an all-electric Range Rover that is more road focused than any other Land Rover product to date. I would assume this will eventually take the Velar’s place in the lineup, but who knows? I genuinely had no idea this vehicle was coming. I also await further details as the story unfolds.

This then beings me to my next surprise. JLR are back chasing military contracts, as you can read elsewhere in this issue. And not just that, they have called it the Wolf Series II after the original Defender Wolf of 1998. And this brings me to my admission that I was wrong. Back in Issue 3, I wrote a piece on 5 years of the Defender, called “But is it a Defender” and in it I confidently stated:

“You will not for example, see one with a 50-calibre machine gun protruding from its roof driving across a battlefield “

Roll on to this month when JLR shared this picture.

Above – As you can clearly see from the picture, there is a gun mount on the cage, assuming for a 50 cal.

So, there you go, JLR can still surprise us. Does this mean Land Rover are going back to their roots? In some respects, yes, but the world has moved on, and JLR offers products to suit. The next vehicle announcement I assume is that of the Defender Sport, aimed at replacing the Discovery Sport, at the lower end of the Land Rover food chain. It is rumoured to be all-electric too. But what do I know. I have been wrong before.