A Brief History Of Land Rovers

Maurice Wilks, a chief designer for the British car company 'Rover', built the first Land Rover on his farm on the Welsh island of Anglesey. An American World War II Jeep was said to be his inspiration and the first prototype 'centre steer' was built on a Jeep chasis. Due to wartime shortages of steel, Birmabright (a rust-proof and lightweight proprietary alloy of magnesium and aluminium) was used. The Land Rover built up a reputation of durability because of Birmabright's prolonged resistance to corrosion.

Again, due to wartime surplus supplies, these early models were mainly painted in 'military green' colours. Since these early models and only up until recently, Land Rovers have featured the familiar sturdy box section frame chassis.

Early Series 1 models were field tested at Long Bennington. They were designed to be field serviced and it was widely advertised that they were driven thousands of miles on banana oil. The Land Rover is still widely used by the military today due to it's all-terrain versatility and durability.

Under the ownership of Ford, Land Rovers have had a close association with Jaguar, sharing components and production facilities. Although they were primarily manufactured at Solihul near Birmingham UK, production of the Freelander was moved to the Jaguar plant at Liverpool.

Many Land Rovers have been built by Ford and Jaguar around the world under exclusive license.

Ford sold the Land Rover brand to Tata Motors on June 2nd 2008.

Since the 70's, production of many alternative 4x4 vehicles became tough competition for Land Rover, many having larger engines. Although during this period, the Land Rover saw a decline in popularity, the rust eventually began to show on the Japanese competition and the onset of the new Defender model put the Land Rover back on the farmyard drive.