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By Admin at 2007-09-12 19:24
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The year is 1947 and Britian was still recovering from WWII, the then Chief designer of the Rover Car Company Maurice Wilks owned his own farm in Newborough near Anglesey in Wales the whole country was littered with machinery and vehicles left behind after the war including hundreds of Amercian 4x4 Jeeps which where used by land owners to help them work on there farms and small holdings.
Maurice was a clever designer and soon realised that these 4x4 vehicles could have a very useful purpose in many peoples lives so on his return to the Car factory he began drawing up plans for a new British 4x4 off roader his first prototype was based on a Jeep chassis with a centre steering wheel and became know as 'Centre Steer'.
Due to steel being rationed after the war the only way that this new product would be allowed to go ahead was if it could be built using the massive amounts of surplus aircraft grade aluminium, which of cause was easier than steel to work with and the prototype was built in record time and then taken to Wales and in front of the Rover board was shown how versatile it could be the board gave the go ahead for production to start.
1948 saw the Land Rover start production and was launched at the Amsterdam Motor Show and was sold as the Series 1 another fact is that everything used on these Land Rover where either new or from the Rover parts bin not a single Jeep componment was used and thus the legend was born.
One important fact to remember is that the Rover board only agreed funds for Land Rovers to be built for around 2-3 years as a stop gap vehicle to help bring in profit to allow the Rover Company to desgin and build a brand new road car.
A brief company timeline- 1948: Land Rover is designed by the Wilks Brothers and is manufactured by the Rover Company
- 1967: Rover becomes part of Leyland Motors Ltd, later British Leyland
- 1970: Introduction of the Range Rover
- 1971: Series III launched.
- 1975: BL collapses and is nationalised, publication of the Ryder Report recommends that Land Rover be split from Rover and be treated as a separate company within BL and becomes part of the new commercial vehicle division called the Land Rover Leyland Group
- 1976: One millionth Land Rover leaves the production line.
- 1980: Rover car production ends at Solihull, which is now exclusively for Land Rover manufacture. 5-door Range Rover introduced.
- 1983: Land Rover Ninety/One Ten/127 (Defender) introduced.
- 1986: BL plc becomes Rover Group plc
- 1988: Rover Group is privatised and becomes part of British Aerospace, and is now known simply as Rover.
- 1987: Range Rover is introduced to the U.S market
- 1989: Introduction of the Discovery (Disco I to enthusiasts)
- 1994: Rover Group is taken over by BMW. Introduction of second-generation Range Rover. (The original Range Rover was continued under the name 'Range Rover Classic' until 1995)
- 1998: Introduction of the Freelander
- 1999: Introduction of the second generation of Discovery (Disco II)
- 2000: BMW breaks up the Rover Group and sells Land Rover to Ford for £1.8 billion
- 2002: Introduction of third-generation Range Rover
- 2005: Land Rover founder Rover, collapses.
- 2005: Introduction of the third-generation Discovery/LR3
- 2005: Introduction of Range Rover Sport
- 2005: Adoption of the Jaguar AJ-V8 engine to replace the BMW M62 V8 in the Range Rover
- 2006: Announcement of a new 2.4 litre diesel engine, 6 speed gearbox, dash and forward facing rear seats for Defender. Introduction of second generation of Freelander (Freelander 2). Ford acquires the Rover trademark from BMW, effectively bringing it back home to Solihull for the first time since 1980.
- 2007: May 8th. 4,000,000th Land Rover rolls off the production line, a Discovery 3 (LR3), donated to The Born Free Foundation.
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