WORDS by KATE BLACK | IMAGES as CREDITED
We’ve all told a Landy story. Or listened to one. Flooded river crossings, gnarly bush roads, marathon overland pilgrimages, beach, bush, bustling cities; such is the life of a Landy. Its history is colourful, starting out in khakis on a farm in Wales, and revving its way through the ages to become one of the most versatile and iconic vehicles of all time.
As the archetypal ‘safari wagon’, the Landy is the unplanned subject of so many of our safari accounts; a subconscious symbol of adventure for many. We’ve sifted through the tall tales to find out how this auto-legend got its daring personality:
1947: Thinking Landy
One day in 1947, Maurice Wilks, chief designer at the Rover Company, sketched the silhouette of a Land Rover on a Welsh beach. While using a Jeep on his farm in Newborough, Anglesey, he and his brother Spencer Wilks, Managing Director at Rover, saw a gap in the market for a vehicle with a Jeep Chassis and a Rover engine. This was the beginning of an era.
1948: The Land Rover has landed
The launch of the first Land Rover at the Amsterdam Motor Show was an immediate success, with Rover soon realizing that this vehicle would outstrip the successes of all its other vehicles. And it did. By the end of 1948, Land Rover was being exported to nearly 70 countries.
Interestingly, the first Land Rover was built with its steering wheel in the middle, to ‘keep things simple’ and avoid having to build two different cars for left and right-hand drive markets!
1948-1958: Bigger and better
In the first 10 years since its launch, the Land Rover grew and grew, very literally in fact: its engine size and load space increased, as well as its wheelbase so that it became a 10-seater, a diesel engine family was launched, and in 1958, the Series 11 was launched with another overwhelmingly positive response.
By this stage, the Land Rover was also being used by the US Military as a light utility vehicle.
The original ‘centre-steer’ Land Rover, and the 14th US Engineer Battallion in Pyongyang, North Korea, November 1950, commandering a British Series I Land Rover.
1959: Landy Loads
In its 10th year of existence, the 250 000th Land Rover rolled off the production line.
The 1960’s
During the 60’s, a 12-seater station wagon was introduced (rumour has it that this legally qualified the Landy as a ‘bus’ exempting them from passenger vehicle tax systems!), an Alloy V8 Engine was acquired, production counts hit ½ million vehicles, and Rover merged with British company, Leyland (the merged company then spanned Rover, Triumph, Jaguar, Austin and Morris).
The 1970’s
The Range Rover was born, complete with hi-tech suspension and off-road agility. It went on to win awards for technical excellence. Also launched was the 1-Tonne Forward Control Land Rover, designed to British Army specifications.
1980’s now
A whole lot of other technical stuff happened to transform the Land Rover of the 80’s into the one we know today: from the launch of the Defender in 1990, and multiple changes in Rover ownership (Land Rover Limited, BMW, Ford, Tata Motors) over the years, to the production of the four millionth Land Rover in 2008, the same year the vehicle had its 60th anniversary.
Other outland-yish facts
- Land Rover used to be an enthusiastic sponsor for the overland trips of Cambridge and Oxford students to all sorts of places, including Singapore and the Sahara.
- The Land Rover was once displayed in Paris’ most famous art museum, the Louvre, as a masterpiece of industrial design.
- Land Rover and Range Rover have dominated some of the toughest off-road challenges, including the first ever Dakar Rally and the Camel Trophy (consecutively, for two whole decades!)
- In the 50’s, you could order a Land Rover with tank treads! The Series 11 Cuthbertson was invented by a Scotsman who wanted the vehicle to be able to trek across the Highlands without sinking into the ground.
Watch these wonderful snaps of how the Landy began, by Land Rover USA:
