Strong stuff: The cars that made Land Rover

As Land Rover marks its 75th year in 2023, London Concours is celebrating a range of models that have touched every corner of the globe – and no doubt have been used for every task required of people. A multifaceted product boasting functionality and fandom, creative engineering and an eclectic nature, the original Land Rover has given us something totally unique in the automotive arena.

We begin with the incredible story of how the Land Rover went from concept to 1948 line-built production in a mere ten months. The key unique attributes of those earliest vehicles still run seamlessly through the Defender today.

No matter which of these models we study here, that famous initial stance and front grille instantly deliver the wheelbase and bodystyle behind it, which in turn define that particular vehicle’s direction and practicality – the key features required by the individual operator.

Off road, the intuitive four-wheel-drive set-up developed in the early 1950s, with its cautionary yellow-and-red single-step system, seamlessly installed confidence and delivered an exhilarating driving experience to operators. In turn, this laid the framework for today’s legendary Terrain Response system.

Then, to harness these features, is the vehicle’s backbone – the box-section chassis. From 1948, this gave the cars a unique foundation which quickly evolved into a multiple product platform that defined in the Series Land Rover and later Defender the car’s famous versatility and adaptability decades ahead of time.

The vehicles on show at the HAC outline the eras of development, and show the key steps in how the original Land Rover evolved over the past 75 years. The Series 1 period of the late 1940s and the 1950s is defined by the car’s continued and rapid development, from the original 80in model to the multiple wheelbase and bodystyles that became synonymous with how we know the Defender.

Progressing into the 1960s, the Series 2 moved with the times on both style and function. Delivered by David Bache, these changes cast the vehicle dimensionally and visually to become one of the world’s automotive icons. Then, the Series 3 and early One Ten continued the steady development required for the Land Rover to move with the decades of automotive advancement – but equally the vehicle remained the same in people’s hearts and minds, with those original key defining features firmly in place.

The beginning of the Defender era in the 1990s was that step in the transition to the true consolidation of the icon. The Defender name and brand define the past and present perfectly in a vehicle that is simply and humbly ready to get on with whatever is the task at hand.