Celebrating An Evolution.

Celebrating an evolution Land Rover celebrates its 60th birthday this year. takes a look at the history that has created the brand we know today.

What began life as a product range within the then Rover company's stable, Land Rover is to this day still revered as Britain's number one manufacturer of utilitarian vehicles. Without a doubt, the date April 30 1948 holds sentimental memories for the company as it marks its first vehicle coming to fruition. While the
company's name also alluded to the model itself, it was later decided that the company's name should refer to its entire 4x4 vehicles rather than just one model instead. The said initial model was launched at the Amsterdam motorshow and to Rover's delight became somewhat of an instant hit. As a result the company embarked on a programme to export these vehicles to more than 70 countries. It was not until the following year, however, that the vehicles greeted the US market.
By 1959 and after about 11 years of production, the company rolled off its 250000th vehicle off the assembly line and in 1961 the company launched a larger diesel engine, which together with a model name change was known as the Series IIA.
Hardly a year into the new range's name, the company also brought to the market a 12-seater people mover station wagon, which cemented the company's efforts to broaden its horizons in the form of expanding its range of cars. By 1966 the company had already reached the half-a-million mark of vehicles built under its umbrella.
The year 1968 arguably brought the biggest changes to the company in general and the British vehicle market in particular with the amalgamation of two key players in British vehicle manufacturing circles.

Leyland, including Rover and Triumph, joined the British Motor Corporation (BMC), incorporating Austin,Morris and Jaguar, to become what was at the time known as British Leyland. In June 1970 the company introduced the Range Rover, which had a commendable on and off-road ability courtesy of long travel coil springs. The model remains the flagship of the line-up, although at the time it was solely available in a twodoor configuration. While the Range Rover's sales were doing fairly well, the company decided to expand its appeal and practicality by introducing a four-door version in 1981.

By the following year the Range Rover production figure had reached 100000, which spoke volumes of the model's uptake by the market. In 1983 the then MD of Land Rover, Tony Gilroy, devised a programme to begin production at the main Solihull plant, which was later followed by the launch of the One Ten. In 1994,the entire Rover Group was acquired by BMW and this saw the entire model range share components,
particularly the engines, with the German marque.
The marriage only lasted six years and in 2000 BMW sold Land Rover to Ford, which I might add did a rather sterling job keeping the brand relevant and in line with its off-road heritage. The model line-up improved with the years and included the legendary Defender, Freelander, Discovery and Range Rover. In 2002 production notched up 500000 units while 2003 saw the Freelander, which was launched in 1998,
receive a prominent mid-life facelift. 2004 saw the introduction of the Discovery3 to the market and displayed the design theme of future Land Rovers.

In the same year the company displayed at the Geneva Motorshow, the Range Stormer, which made it to production a year later as the Range Rover Sport we know of today. This past year saw the launch of the Freelander2, which displayed huge improvements over its predecessor. The year 2007 also saw a new range of V8 diesel engines being offered in the Range Rover range, which we are told feature the same technology as those used in the smaller V6 diesel engines. This has seen the vehicles return some rather credible consumption figures compared with their petrol cousins.

We recently took the Range Rover Sport TDV8 for spin and were impressed to see a figure of 8,6l/100km beamed on the instrument cluster. While those figures are more than impressive, it is without sacrificing on the vehicle's performance as it simply lifts up a clean pair of heels whenever driven in gusto. This also brings me to the Defender long wheelbase, which we also had an opportunity to sample recently and I must say that never have I driven something that feels this indestructible! Land Rover SA last week invited Motor News to celebrate its 60th anniversary and while the official date may have already elapsed, the company was quick to point out that it has intentions of celebrating this event over the full year.

Another reason, however, was that it has plans to bring the limited edition Defender 90 SVX, featuring,among others, a soft top roof, Recaro bucket seats, metallic finished grille, a silver tubular cage and a thumping subwoofer, among others, onto our shore to commemorate the event. Only 1800 of these rare models will be built of which one will be available on display, together with the LRX concept car seen here,
at this year's JIMS (Johannesburg Motorshow). This will also mark the first time Land Rover appears at the show under the auspices of its new owners, TATA. While the three-door latter has not been confirmed for production, a company spokesperson alluded to the fact that most concepts displayed by the company at motorshows have later gone into production.
Over and above all this, the company has strong links with nature conservation and as such is heavily involved in the protection of endangered species the like of the African Wild Dog, which in the greater scheme of things speaks volumes of Land Rover's commitment to nature preservation. And with that said,here's to another glorious 60 years of Land Rover.The Range Rover Sport is the underutilised favourite of the trendy well-off SUV set.
The LandRover Defender is still the stalwart of the range.
The LRX concept shows the way forward for the iconic brand.

By Lerato Matebese