Land Rover plodded on. There were developments aplenty in the following years, but they were evolutionary rather than revolutionary. Today, more than 60 years on, you can stand one of the last Defenders alongside the earliest Series I and there’s no mistaking the family resemblance.
The first prototypes were powered by a 1398cc engine, which developed a mere 48bhp. This, however, was deemed inadequate, so the production vehicles were equipped with the 1595cc side-valve unit that had been designed for the Rover P3 60 saloon car. Various drivetrain and axle changes along the way were also dictated by contemporary saloon variants until, in August 1951, the vehicle received the very welcome 1997cc overhead valve engine, which delivered a 26 per cent increase in torque at low engine speeds.
In 1953, the wheelbase was extended to 86 inches, and a long wheelbase version at 107 inches was also introduced. In 1956, these were further extended to 88 and 109 inches to accommodate the bigger 2052cc diesel engine, which became available for the first time a year later.
The very earliest Land Rovers were available in light green only. Legend has it that the company managed to secure a bulk purchase of war surplus paint used to decorate the interiors of RAF bombers, and it was only when that ran out that Land Rovers were sold in the familiar dark green (known as Bronze Green) now synonymous with the marque. It was some years before further colour options – blue and grey – became available.
Although the choice of paintwork was limited, the sky was the limit as far as other options went. The simple, bolt-together construction of the vehicle and its generous provision of power take-off points meant that it could be readily adapted for industrial as well as agricultural use. In fact, a fire-engine variant had been included among the original prototypes, proving that the company was on the ball from the start. Mobile compressors and welders were among the special vehicles available direct from Solihull, but like the 1948 coach-built Tickford Station Wagon, they were not a financial success. Also, many modified variations on the Land Rover theme were – and still are – produced by independent specialists. Today, these are mainly luxury, bespoke variants created by companies like Nene Overland (who produced my own distinctive set of wheels).
The Tickford Station Wagon, Land Rover’s first foray into comfortable transport, failed because of the eye-watering levels of purchase tax imposed by the government on luxury goods in the immediate post-war years. However, the company returned to the abandoned Station Wagon theme late in 1954 with a seven-seater on the short wheelbase 86-inch chassis, and accommodation (albeit rather cramped) for ten in the long wheelbase 107-inch version. Alloy-framed bodies replaced the expensive wooden frames of the earlier Tickford version and, although the long wheelbase model in particular looked for all the world as though it had been assembled from a Meccano set, both were an immediate and enduring success.
Enthusiasts love the rugged simplicity of the Series I. Its lack of creature comforts and austere lines give it an aesthetic purity unrivalled by any other motor vehicle, before or since. But it is also a brilliantly practical vehicle for travel in the most remote parts of the world, and, like many early Land Rovers, much revered and much sought-after.
CHAPTER TWO
HOW LAND ROVER BECAME THE MODERN EXPLORERS
Britain has a long heritage of exploration and adventure; Captain Cook, Captain Scott, Ernest Shackleton, Livingstone, Raleigh, Drake … the list is endless. In many ways, the Land Rover became the mechanical evolution of the great heroic era of exploration. It provided access to places that had once been inaccessible. It allowed modern-day explorers to push geographic boundaries and penetrate deep into some of the Earth’s greatest and hitherto unexplored wildernesses.
British, strong, lantern-jawed, rugged, reliable and determined, the qualities of the Land Rover were not lost on professional explorers. Where once the adventurer had relied on packhorses and mules to carry their loads, this vehicle stepped in as their new mechanical workhorse. A Land Rover could go anywhere that a horse had gone, without fear of fatigue. It could carry heavier loads, too.
One of the first explorers to use the Land Rover was Colonel Leblanc, who drove from Britain to Ethiopia in 1949. The Rover company were impressed at his audacity, and soon he became a travelling salesman for the company. In this role Leblanc helped to sell new models of Land Rovers and Rover cars by leading them in small convoys into faraway remote regions, demonstrating their endurance abilities to the watching world.
However it was Laurens Van der Post who helped to establish the Land Rover as the perfect expedition vehicle. Van der Post was commissioned by the BBC to make a six-part documentary in search of the Bushmen in the Kalahari. The Lost World of the Kalahari was a huge hit and Land Rover suddenly realised the power of the brand in helping and endorsing overland expeditions around the world. The vehicles acted like mobile advertising billboards.
One of the most celebrated Land Rover adventurers was an adventuress named Barbara Toy. In 1955, the Australian adventuress drove an 80-inch Land Rover called Pollyanna around the globe. Her book, Pollyanna, documenting the journey became a bestseller, further cementing the Land Rover as the explorer’s car.
But it is the 1955–6 Far East expedition undertaken by Oxford and Cambridge Universities that caused Land Rover to become the iconic symbol of discovery and adventure. The expedition was on an unprecedented scale and had numerous sponsors, including the Royal Geographic Society. It involved an overland journey across Europe and Asia from London to Singapore. It was the first time such an expedition had been attempted. Two 86-inch Series I station wagons had been loaned to a team of students from Oxford and Cambridge Universities. The Land Rovers were painted in the light and dark blues of the respective universities.
It was a gruelling journey that included the daunting prospect of the dense impenetrable jungles of Southeast Asia. The former commissioner of the BBC, a then unknown David Attenborough, commissioned a film about the expedition.
The film included the crossing of the virgin desert between Damascus and Baghdad and the traverse of the Ledo Road between India and Burma that was later closed. The vehicles forded rivers and streams and often had to build their own bridges to cross the deeper bodies of water. They drove the narrow, dizzying roads of Nepal and risked both bandits and headhunters in their quest to drive to Singapore. The team were forced to hack new paths through northern Thailand’s virgin forest.
The vehicles provided Land Rover with invaluable data on their tolerance and resilience in tough conditions, but above all, the iconic images and the later film provided advertising that money couldn’t buy of the Land Rover as the go-anywhere vehicle.
The Oxford and Cambridge Expedition arrived in Singapore on 6 March 1956, six months after leaving Hyde Park the previous year. It was a huge success. The vehicles had negotiated 18,000 miles of roads, tracks and jungle. One of the Land Rovers is still on display at the Heritage Centre in Gaydon today.
The success of the expedition was soon followed by a second Oxford and Cambridge overland journey across South America in search of the geographical centre of Brazil.
Not to be outdone by the educated elite, working-class Londoner Eric Edis set out in 1957 to circumnavigate the entire world in a Land Rover. Without sponsorship, he led a team of sixteen in three Land Rovers on a two-year journey. Only one of the Land Rovers survived the gruelling expedition, but once again the Land Rover had proved its credentials while also acting as a mobile billboard, reaching people and places other brands could only dream of achieving.
One of my favourite expeditions, visually, was the Joint Services Expedition in which four Forward Control 101s crossed northern Africa and the Sahara Desert – travelling 7500 miles from the Atlantic