Order date is not the critical factor. MY15 production starts 13th October. 

I think the LR reluctance to change orders once they've been "locked down" is due to many mistakes on delivery with wrong spec being delivered. Not sure where the problem is but I ordered a Vogue nearly 2 years ago now and was one of the first deliveries of the L405. Ordered it originally with Ivory interior and changed it to Ebony when I found out my wife was expecting! Order change approved and confirmed well before cut-off date but car was delivered with Ivory!

Dealer was actually very good though and 6 months later I was driving away in one of the first new Sports having had 6 months free motoring in the Vogue being given the same price as I paid for it when I gave it back 8,000 mies later!

I know I wasn't the only one with fairly fundamental errors with their ordered spec so I wonder if LR now have a very strict policy of no changes to avoid future cock-ups.

I have been caught out by the bring forward of the lock down phase this time round too. Ordered my SC to replace the 3.0ATB in April, was told I could change the spec up until 18 Aug for a mid Sept build date but when I tried to in early Aug was told since MY15 was announced they locked down all MY14.5 orders. Bit frustrated as would have liked to have edited a few bits - and actually add about £3k of options (!), but dealer said no. I'll be missing out on MY15 by about 3 weeks too. Oh well. SOLD - 15 plate Estoril SVR

SOLD - 64 plate Aleutian Silver Supercharged

SOLD - 63 plate Corris SDV6 Autobiography

This is the reason I ordered a 2012 car before my 2011 car was delivered as after a (considerable) delay the latter ended up going into build in the last week of the model year.