With the Land Rover Defender due to be ‘de-commissioned’ later this year the company’s marketing department is finding ever new creative ways in which to make sure you know about it. And its always good practice to announce the beginning of the end of a long serving production vehicle by announcing its 2,000,000th build. That’s 2 million Land Rover Defenders sold, and we salute you Defender. But you would think Land Rover would end it there, oh no the marketing team want to stretch this one out for all its worth. First of all the 2 millionth Defender will be a bespoke model, we say yes why not celebrate this milestone by heaping love and attention to what is an in-animate object. For example A map of Red Wharf Bay – where the design for the original Land Rover was first drawn in the sand – is engraved into the aluminium fender. You also get a bespoke interior, well leather seats with the ‘Red Wharf Bay’ graphic stitched into the seat and also no. 2,000,000 on the headrest. That’s all good we like that, however Land Rover decided to sprinkle the celebrity glitter all over this very special edition. And just reading that made us nauseous. Yes a host of celebrities in some way contributed to the final build, the most notable one being Bear Grylls who fitted all the wheels, the other celebrities are known mainly to UK audiences and some smooth talkers who got a medal from the Queen for services to the ‘Empire’. I think its called pomp and ceremony. We think this is taking things a bit too far, after all the assembly workers should have been the ones taking the credit not these paid-for celebrities on a day out in “Burm-in-em”. And the worst insult is that this 2 millionth Defender will be auctioned off at a charity event in central London later on in the year. Now you know what we think about charities and what we think is libelous but totally true. However our lawyers to us to shut up. So this post, instead of being a celebration of the Land Rover Defender, has turned into a critique. We just don’t follow the media briefings very well here at DCB Towers.