The details of the SUV were not yet revealed during a breakfast meeting with Land Rover dealers in Orlando, Florida. Without the details, the tag price of the new Land Rover LRX is not yet determined. The LRX is expected to widen the market base of the brand especially since it will also be the most efficient of the cars in the Land Rover garage.

Official photos were released by the car manufacturer and we have hits that it will be coming out with diesel, gasoline, and hybrid variants.

The hybrid and gasoline LRX will head to the United States while the diesel version might be offered in the European market.

The LRX concept was revealed during the 2008 auto show in Detroit. The concept vehicle then had a 2.0L hybrid diesel engine running on biodiesel and has a mileage of 60 mpg. We might need to wait a while before seeing this powertrain in production since it will cost a lot to combine electric drives with diesel.

The car may also be equipped with a start stop technology to further boost its fuel savings feature and decrease its emissions. The designers might also use carbon fiber to cut down the weight of the SUV.

The Halewood plant of Land Rover is tasked to start production of the 2012 LRX by next year.

The team responsible for the new Defender is working with their drawing boards covered under the moniker Project Icon. The goal is to update the old Defender and apply principles of modern design to make its lines more appealing to today’s consumers. Land Rover wants to keep the vehicle simple and preserve its capability for which the Defender is known for.

The new Defender might avoid the aluminum body but instead borrow some concept from the rugged steel body works of the Range Rover and the Discovery. Most of its current siblings in the garage are going for the lighter aluminum but the ruggedness of the Defender might just be calling for a harder shell.

It will initially be assembled in England but the car maker has plans to spread production in China, India, and Russia.

The upgrade of the Defender to T5 chassis will involve installing independent suspension, air or steel springs, and a choice between soft or hard roofing. The engine will most likely from the range of six or four cylinders running on diesel.

Most likely, the new Defender will not touch the American shore. The last stint of the vehicle on U.S. grounds was during the 1990s.