Rover's Return

When Victoria Beckham leant her angular frame against the Range Rover Evoque she helped design in 2012, complete with rose-gold accents and a four-piece leather luggage set, jaws dropped in disbelief. What had become of Land Rover, the ultimate rugged, utilitarian, muddy car brand, beloved by the British public since its origins in 1948? How had the marque gone from making tough o -roaders like the Series I (pictured), essentially a light tractor, roughly sketched on a beach in Anglesey, to blinged-up, pumped-up, urban status symbols that would barely even encounter a patch of grass?

The critics should have saved their breath, for worse, or better, depending on your viewpoint, was to come: in 2016 the top was lopped o the Evoque, making it the world’s first convertible luxury SUV (although the Land Rover did begin life without a roof), and now, thanks to Jaguar Land Rover’s

Special Vehicles Operations (SVO) department, Land Rover can’t stop creating extreme, highly stylised examples of its sturdy SUVs... it will even add crazy bodywork and paint to that most iconic of Land Rovers, the Defender, currently discontinued while we await the replacement model. 

Yet a look at the history of Land Rover, which celebrates its 70th birthday next year, shows a British brand that has gone from strength to strength, adapting and growing at an astounding rate, defying the market under the ownership of Indian steel magnate Tata.

A glance back through the familiar canon of Land Rovers shows just how this ultimate British o -roader has evolved. In the beginning, there was the 450 Series I, based on the American Willys Jeep, and the world saw it was good. So good that sales soared: as a result of a shortage of steel in post-war Britain, the Land Rover was clad in aluminium alloy which made it light and resistant to corrosion. The British Armed Forces ordered a load, followed by the Red Cross.

The Series II followed in 1958, and by 1959 Land Rover had sold 250,000 vehicles. Creature comforts crept in during the mid-Sixties as drivers demanded a pleasant as well as a practical mode of transport. The American market craved a “recreational” o -roader, and so, in 1970, the two-door Range Rover was born (the prototype was named the Velar, a badge resurrected for Land Rover’s latest luxury baby SUV).

Just as it would be with the Evoque, Land Rover was taken by surprise at the popularity of its creation. A black market emerged with certain drivers willing to pay in excess of the asking price or bribe people to jump the waiting list. And so the luxury SUV was born. 

The Nineties gave birth to the Defender, Discovery and Freelander models, but also witnessed two changes of ownership for the badge, first to BMW, then to Ford. Still, the Nineties ended with the unveiling of the most expensive Land Rover ever: the Range Rover Linley, a limited run of just six cars, each with a £100,000 price tag. Land Rover was increasingly synonymous with high-end luxury.

In 2005, Land Rover introduced big, powerful supercharged V8 engines: the wealthy customer wanted speed as well as comfort. As usual, the brand was canny: it could see the eco brigade marching towards it, waving banners for cleaner, greener cars. Land Rover was enemy number one with its needlessly big, heavy, gas-guzzling 4x4s.

As ever, Land Rover innovated. It built its cars out of lighter aluminium, and set its engineers to working on smaller engines, hybrid and pure-electric powertrains. It has now introduced, in the Velar, synthetic protein leathers, and sustainable open-grain woods. In October this year, it announced the arrival of the first plug-in hybrid Range Rover. By 2020, all Land Rovers will feature an electric derivative.

The public currently awaits both the Defender replacement and the possible arrival, in 2019, of the first Road Rover, a new pure electric line built primarily for Tarmac, with limited o -road capability. Inevitably, it will sell well. Not bad for a company whose famous logo was apparently modelled on a pilchard tin left on the designer’s desk after lunch.

No one, not even Land Rover, knows what the next 70 years will bring, but one thing is certain: the company will rise to the challenge, for no other brand provides a better history lesson on how to survive automotive natural selection. 

This article is taken from the Goodwood magazine, Winter 2018 issue