LONDON -- Land Rover confirmed media reports that it will end production of its iconic Defender SUV.
"The Defender will go out of production by the middle of the decade due to legislative reasons," a Land Rover spokesman told Automotive News Europe.
The spokesman declined to comment on the legislative reasons.
Land Rover is developing a replacement vehicle for the Defender but the company did not disclose the name or any details of the new product.
Land Rover also would not say when the replacement will go on sale.
Analysts Bernstein Research believe a Defender replacement will not go on sale until 2019 at the earliest. "The Defender replacement remains far from ready due to a lack of volume and weak business case," Bernstein analyst Max Warburton wrote in a recent report on Jaguar Land Rover.