Ezra Dyer

It?s great to be a critic. Critics?of movies, politics, football, automobiles, etc?are allowed to pass judgement without putting their own intellectual capital on the line.

For instance, if I complain that BMW?s original iDrive interface was designed for super intelligent extraterrestrials with dual sets of eyeballs, well, it?s not as if I had any say in its creation. I?m just rendering an opinion at the long end of a process I had nothing to do with.

I?m sure many car designers, movie directors and offensive coordinators have read a harsh column and said, ?OK, genius, let?s see you try this.?

Well, someone at Land Rover may have been thinking exactly that: the company recently offered me the chance to weigh in on the next generation of the Land Rover Defender, subjecting my ideas to public scrutiny. The hunter becomes the hunted.

The Defender, which I think of as a kind of Jeep Wrangler for highbrow Anglophiles, is an icon steeped in hard-won authenticity, and Land Rover is mulling ideas for the next one.

The point of this exercise, as Land Rover explained it, is that I?d describe my ideal Defender of the Future and they?d whip up a sketch to show me what it would look like. (I showed them a design proposal I drew myself, but they politely told me they don?t normally draft concept vehicles in crayon.)

To start the process, Land Rover sent a list of questions. I thought these were going to be highly specific? about what sort of departure angle I?d need and whether a snorkel intake should be standard equipment or part of the Off Road Dominance Package, along with an avalanche shovel and Rover-branded speargun.

However, the questions tended to be more philosophical, like, ?If your car were a person, who would it be, and why?? To that, I answered, ?It would be the love child of Bear Grylls and Lady Gaga. It?d be able to go anywhere, and it would be strange enough that many of the people who like it wouldn?t really be able to explain why.?

I thought the questionnaire was a good start, but it didn?t really leave me with enough freedom to make unreasonable demands. So I sent Land Rover an addendum?quite a long addendum.

Hey, people don?t ask me to design a car of the future every day, you know? I may as well dream big.

And, to clarify, by ?future?, I was thinking ?50 years in the future?. Here are some more features I proposed:

* An electric motor at each wheel and a total of 2,000 horsepower. Power would be provided by what I call ultrananocapacitors, which would be to today?s batteries as nukes are to TNT. How do they work? That is a great question.

* Dual-tread tyres. To go off-roading, you?d air up using the integral compressor. Because when the tyres are inflated to 40 pounds per square inch, the secondary tread, superknobby and supersoft, would deploy.

* Centre-mounted steering wheel. Because nobody has figured out anything cooler since the McLaren F1.

* Electric active suspension. The rear wheels, in addition to longitudinal height adjustment, would have lateral adjustment as well. At full reach, they?d be able to extend backward beyond the rear bumper for the best departure angle ever.

* Drive by wire. By which I mean that an authorised user would be able to control the vehicle remotely. So a new form of cab company would consist of people who would drive your own car from their computers. It?s like the Reaper drone, kind of?if you?ve had too much to drink, you climb in your car, call the cab company and give them the password to drive your car home. With you in it.

* While the Defender would be a retractable-hardtop convertible, with the top up it would be completely waterproof. An optional submersible package would add ballast tanks and onboard oxygen for complete submersible capability down to 15 feet. (News flashes from the future: In 2055, a Range Rover will be the first 4×4 to ford the Mississippi. In 2060, a Defender will return to Cape Cod from Nantucket without taking the ferry.)

* Prices will start at the bargain price of 15,000,000,000,000,000 renminbi. Leased vehicles will include a gauge that measures depreciation so that lessees can get the most bang for their yuan.

* No cup holders. Land Rovers would have a magnetised body-color steel panel on the dash. Magnetic cups that come with the car will adhere to the panel and release automatically when you want a drink. If you go to McDonald?s, you?ll hand them your cup and tell them to fill it, and they?ll give you an exasperated look, same as now.

After Land Rover?s designers had some time to digest all of this, and probably rue the day they asked for my opinions, the design team came through with a sketch. The studio?s Defender concept is a boxy little two-door with giant tyres and the integrated winch and skid plate that I asked for on the questionnaire.

But the steering wheel isn?t in the centre of the vehicle, which means they either disregarded that stipulation or just sent me the coolest sketch that was more or less aesthetically in line with my manifesto.

The first sketch also depicted the Defender in an urban environment, with the roof closed. I was thinking of an open off-roader, so they sent a revised sketch of the Defender with an open roof and a roll bar, striking its jaunty pose in a woodland setting. I love it. But of course I would. Even if I had very little to do with the actual styling of this thing, I think it strikes a great balance between off-road toughness and upscale Land Rover-ness.

If the company eventually produces something like this, I?ll be keenly interested in the reviews. And if you don?t like it, I?d like to see you design a car, genius.