A clean, well-lighted car
All you Hemingway wannabes out there no longer have to freeze in the winter in your old drafty Defender. New, improved versions, resembling Papa's old British jeep, are finally on the way.
Soft-top 90s version of the Defender
(Credit: Land Rover)Rumors of a Land Rover Defender returning to the North American market are true. The car will be back in 2007 as a 2008 model. Soft-top, long-wheelbase and short-wheelbase versions are also "in the works," according to Atlantic British, which would probably know as the leading U.S. supplier of after-market parts for Land Rovers in the United States.
Land Rover wants to recreate the car as a "21st century icon," according to a company executive quoted by Atlantic British--with a few minor improvements of course.
The modifications for the 2008 Land Rover Defender will include the addition of the appropriate air bags, one of the reasons the Defender left the U.S. in the first place.
In a software-driven world, it's easy to forget about the nuts and bolts. Whether it's cars, robots, personal gadgetry or industrial machines, Candace Lombardi examines the moving parts that keep our world rotating. A journalist who divides her time between the United States and the United Kingdom, Lombardi has written about technology for the sites of The New York Times, CNET, USA Today, MSN, ZDNet, Silicon.com, and GameSpot. E-mail her at candacelombardi@gmail.com. She is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not a current employee of CNET. 
