Well, no. It reads like unthinking, reactionary, foolish and naive fanboyism.
As such, it uses a seemingly obvious truth, here
"they’re the sort of people who have 45 grand to spend or, more likely, can run to the chunky monthlies on a PCP scheme. This is how Land Rover will survive in these tricky times, by making an expensive car that sells to well-heeled people for more than it costs to make"
... but somehow forgets the key fact that Land Rover is
already doing this with multiple models. The Pretender, as we now see it, seems overwhelmingly unlikely to generate significant new sales as far as I can see; instead it surely seems precisely (and intentionally?) designed to cannibalise sales of the other pre-existing LR models (chiefly I would have thought the Discovery) that already exist in its decidedly urban niche.
There is of course at least one SUV niche for which Land Rover have no currently suitable product and, more than that, it is the niche that made their name: That is a SUV that emphasises Utility. The Pretender, despite its claimed capabilities, is simply not in that niche.
Let us remember that there are many types of customer. There are real world customers with money to spend who do not fit into the urban "they’re the sort of people who have 45 grand to spend or, more likely, can run to the chunky monthlies on a PCP scheme". Other car companies can and do sell SUVs to other types of customer. It strikes me that Land Rover might well benefit from re-broadening its customer base (which the Pretender cannot and will not do since it is effectively indistinguishable from all the other technology-loaded SUVs in the LR line up) since it reportedly isn't doing too well with its current customer base.
Ah yes, the common resort of the unthinking fanboy: A generic, strawman, The "deluded 1950s yeomanry fantasy" to which he so emotively refers is not, in fact, a fantasy. There are real car companies selling real cars to real customers that fulfil the roles and capabilities of the classic Defender and its precursors. There is real money there that, it would seem, LR badly needs. Re-broadening outside of their current upper middle class urban demographic might have been a saving grace. As it stands, the Pretender might well sell but, I am sure, at the expense of other LR models, doing nothing overall to help LR I suspect.
In short, it strikes me that LR have had their day. They've jumped the shark. Sure, they've jumped the shark on a technologically marvellous vehicle with 85 new ways to go wrong in the middle of a field (or on the High Street on the way to pick up the kids) but, all the same, the shark has been jumped.
I predict it's only downhill from here. I'd love to be wrong. I bet I won't be.
By the way, where is the Pretender made?
P.S. I've owned a Land Rover in the past and would have loved to buy a genuinely updated Defender at the right price point one day. Does anyone think that such a vehicle would not have sold well and, indeed, for a profit (if LR's manufacturing was as competent as it surely has to be in order to survive)? But unless I can stretch to a FF RR, none of the other models in the range appeal to me as things stand: They lack clear differentiation. The Pretender offers nothing new or different, clever and nice though it is. If they had called the the 'New Discovery' it would have made way more sense than calling it a Defender.