The Land Rover Defender 90 2020 offers a huge fake pillar and it's just weird

The Land Rover Defender 2020 is here and it looks good, but only if you avoid the short wheelbase model with the "floating pillar" option. Because a vehicle equipped in this way takes an element that has helped the last Defender to stand out as a truly iconic design piece – its large vertical greenhouse – and to cover it with a cheap false pillar , creating a huge blind area. Just look at this stupidity.

I have just returned from the Frankfurt Motor Show, where I was lucky enough to be sitting in the driver's seat of the Land Rover Defender 90 2020 – the two-door version of the new Defender which debuted yesterday.

The cabin looks good in many ways, but what surprised me was a huge artificial blind spot created by a false pillar placed in the center of the rear window. Look at this:

From the inside, this "floating pillar", as Land Rover calls it, darkens the interior and compromises visibility. From the outside, it creates what I consider perhaps the biggest defect aesthetic defender (whose general design I like):

On the four doors shown above on the right, I think the "floating pillar" looks good, and in fact, if you look at the body side exterior panel below, you'll realize that the square border overlaps the C-pillar, so everything is logical.

Here is the look of the interior of the 110 – it looks like a standard C-pillar interior trim:

According to the white body image of the Defender 90 with two doors below, there is no vertical structural element at the back of the B pillar other than the most backward pillar. This "floating pillar" is therefore in reality only a large square, apparently made of plastic. This Land Rover seems to have attached to the side glass by means of four Torx screws and probably some sort of paste or rubber.

From the inside, the view of the rear passenger is extremely limited:

And although there is a small plastic tray, it does not seem to fit much more than maybe a few decks and papers:

From the outside and up close, things also seem strange. The pillar looks like a large plastic square glued to a window:

Gerry McGovern, design director at Land Rover, describes the feature about 16 minutes from the first embedded video below. "[The Defender’s] The horizontal accent continues with squared wheel arches, "he says," and this distinctive floating pillar, which is positioned on the rear wheel to reinforce that planted look. "

It therefore seems that design is the main objective of this "floating pillar", which Land Rover also calls the "Signature Graphic".

I sent an email to Land Rover to find out more, and the brand confirmed that this square and disconcerting piece was actually included as a stylistic element:

The signature graphic (the square piece) is not in the US Defender 90 First Edition of the United States 2020MY, but is included in the overall assets. It is standard on the 110 because of this body structure bearing the longer 5-door versions (see infographic attached). The shorter 90 does not have that extra piece, so the Signature Graphic on the 90 is purely aesthetic.

Land Rover's press release suggests that these false pillars are of practical value because they indicate that the "outer side gear carrier of the vehicle … aligns with the distinctive floating pillars of the Defender model and is perfect for carry malignant equipment.

"If the gear carrier is not equipped," continues Land Rover, "the floating pillars of the new Defender model also offer a deployable roof ladder shelter, which folds from its locked position to allow easy access to objects carried on the roof. "

If the fake pillar is really needed to hold these props, I'm not sure, but the main point is that Land Rover intentionally stuck a big annoying square that creates a blind spot on its glass side, as it is not. design element think it works at all.

Just look below. Without the floating pillar, I think the vehicle looks much cleaner. Plus, the machine loses the huge blind spot and gives the rear passenger the ability to look out of the vehicle, not just to a shallow plastic storage bin:

My colleague, Jason Torchinsky, made fun of what the Defender 90 would look like if he had painted the B and C pillars, and I think it's fantastic, giving the non-driver a more upright look:

Jason is also making fun of what he would look like with only the painted B pillar. He prefers this design:

Why did the brand think that the fake pillar would improve the exterior design, especially if you consider how much it affects visibility.