Background
It’s really not an exaggeration to say that the Land Rover has done almost as much as Captain Cook or David Livingstone to open up the world.
It’s been taking explorers with double-barrelled names and extravagant moustaches to far-flung places since 1948, and stoically delivering engineers to where they were wanted and needed, and missionaries to where they were neither.
It was once said that a Land Rover was the first motor vehicle seen by 60% of people living in developing nations.
The Series Land Rover was introduced following World War II by the Rover Company, and - through various upgrades, face-lifts and model changes - remained in production until 1983, when it was re-named, re-badged and upgraded into the equally-iconic Defender.
The Series I was designed for off-road, agricultural and light-industrial use, utilising a steel box-section chassis and an aluminium body, due to the ongoing metal shortage following the end of the war.
In 1983 the Series 3 109 inch was replaced by a new One-Ten model (110-inch wheelbase).
The traditional Land Rover body shape remained but coil springs, introduced in the new Range Rover, replaced the venerable leaf spring suspension, and the four-cylinder engines were fitted with an all-synchromesh five speed gearbox.
In 1984 the coil spring Ninety (with a wheelbase just short of 93 inches) fitted with a four-cylinder engine was introduced.
In 1990 the Ninety and One-Ten range was renamed Defender 90, 110 and 130.
In 1998, the Defender was fitted with a 2.5-litre, five-cylinder in-line turbodiesel engine called the Td5.
Next, the engine was made more efficient, the ‘XS’ was introduced as the top-spec model and the ‘County’ level of enhanced trim became available across the range.
Perhaps uniquely, the Land Rover Defender is both classy and classless.
It can be deployed to ferry loads of floppy-haired Ruperts and Annabels up and down the Kings Road, or it can haul half a dozen Herdwick sheep and a tonne of fence posts over rough terrain on a Lake District hill farm.
You can use it as a picnic venue while you’re stuffing yourself with quail eggs in the car park at Twickenham/Ascot/Henley.
Or you can make the most of its bullet-proof, bog-trotting, bush-bashing, river-fording capabilities and get yourself from Timbuktu to Ouagadougou quicker than a thirsty camel who’s caught sight of a distant oasis.
It’s whatever you want or need it to be.
