Landy Is Still Dandy At 60

Newcastle Herald

Wednesday May 7, 2008

Brent Davison

IF history is to be believed the ubiquitous Land Rover came about through little more than a bit of selfishness.

The story goes that, around the end of World War II, Rover Cars engineering director Maurice Wilks wanted a versatile vehicle able to act as both a light tractor and an off-road machine for his property on the island of Anglesey.

He showed his ideas to his brother Spencer, Rover's managing director, and the project was approved in 1947, the first prototype built using, ironically, a war surplus Willys Jeep as its base.

Steel was in short supply in Britain after the war but squadrons of decommissioned fighting aircraft all of them made from aluminium were not.

Rover bought the aircraft, dismantled them and stripped out the alloy, recycling it into what came to be the Land Rover.

The first Land Rover a short, square, open-topped thing with a 2032mm wheelbase and utilitarian styling went into production in the northern hemisphere summer of 1948 and sold, at launch, for an untaxed UK#450 ($944).

Interestingly, and in a bid to broaden its appeal to attract farmers and other industries, the first cars were fitted with power take-offs to drive farm equipment.

True to Wilks's design philosophy the car had four-wheel-drive and a low-range transfer case to increase its versatility.

Using aluminium in its construction meant the weight was low so powering it with a 1.6-litre, four-cylinder Rover sedan issue was not an issue.

In 1948, just 1758 Land Rovers were built, but by 1949, with the British Army a customer, that figure blew out to 12,395, and to 16,795 in 1950.

Right from the start though it was a case of "steady as she goes" with evolutionary change the order of the day.

In 1950 the company dropped the permanent all-wheel-drive layout with a selectable transmission offering two-wheel-drive and high and low-range four-wheel-drive.

In 1952 the 1.6-litre engine was replaced with a 2.0-litre.

Ten years and 200,000 examples after its debut on the world stage, Land Rover became a Series II with a restyled body and 2.3-litre engine.

Proving that constant model upgrades are for other car makers, Land Rover then took another 13 years to come up with Series III complete with moulded plastic grille, upgraded fascia and a full-synchromesh gearbox.

It was not until the 1980s that creature comforts like winding windows were added as standard equipment at the same time as two new model definitions with the 90 (90-inch or 2286mm wheelbase) and 110 (110-inch or 2794mm wheelbase) coming on line.

There was no Series IV Landy though, the company choosing to follow a new naming convention started with Range Rover and continued with Discovery, calling the revamped model the Defender.

With the ubiquitous Landy celebrating its 60th anniversary this year, it is nice to know the company is moving with the times.

These days you can even get an MP3 audio jack as standard equipment on a Land Rover.

Maurice Wilks would probably have been impressed.

CLASSIC CAR RALLY PAGE 52

Brent Davison road-tests the cheap and cheerful Subaru Forester on Saturday

© 2008 Newcastle Herald

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