Jeffrey AronsonJLR took a staggering blow when a brutally effective cyberattack brought its IT systems to a halt, effectively shutting down the company for over a month. Not only were the JLR factories in the UK, Slovakia, Brazil and India stalled, but their local suppliers, current and potential customers, and parts network were badly affected. Production ground to a halt; while JLR North America had a reasonable inventory within its dealer network, they weren’t necessarily the ones that customers desired, and orders came to a halt.
JLR’s IT systems integrated information from multiple sources – customer orders, just-in-time production needs, suppliers’ demands, parts orders, etc. — making for an extremely valuable but complex IT infrastructure.
The ship righted itself in October but not without sending waves of unease throughout British manufacturing and the UK government, global suppliers and parts specialists. The cyberattack reminded enthusiasts everywhere of the vulnerabilities built into modern manufacturing practices.
Back in 1998, I toured the Solihull factory and noted the many baskets, totes and piles of parts along the assembly lines. It seemed somewhat wasteful, but I’ll bet that the “just-in-time” manufacturing engineers would have welcomed those stashes in September.
Mark Cameron serves as the Brand Director for JLR’s Defender and Discovery line-ups. He’s an enthusiastic proponent for Defender’s entry into the 2026 Dakar and World Rally-Raid Championship (W2RC).
His official statement on the Dakar D7X-R noted, “The new Defender OCTA has set a high bar and seeing it transform into a Dakar contender is remarkable. Now, with just a few months to go, I am proud of how this team is taking shape. We have a stellar line-up of drivers and co-drivers. With the first Defender Dakar D7X-Rs completing this test, everything is on track.”
“We have a bloodline that goes back to the Series I in 1948 and we have to keep Defender in this [market-leading] position. It’s really important to talk not only about our heritage and rich history, but we also want to demonstrate what a modern Defender can do; going into competition in the toughest rally in the world, the Everest of the rally world, was for me the obvious next step.” That’s why Defender did not build a one-off special vehicle, but based the D7X-R on the production Defender OCTA.
David Evans of DirtFish.com covers the rally world and provided this impression of the D7X-R during its test run in Morocco: “It’s always hard to gauge speed across a big sky, bigger-sand vista like this, but it’s clear that driver Stephane Peterhansel is on it. Also, the Defender’s ability to deal with mid-corner bumps is enormously impressive.”
We connected with a confidential source in Morocco who told us, “The vehicle is absolutely amazing — a tribute to the engineers who have made it intro an absolute desert warrior. It sounds like a wailing banshee and the suspension is unbelievable. It just soaks up the bumps at incredible speeds.” It’s fantastic to see Defender return to top-level Motorsport.