As much part of the modern British Army as the regular soldier, Land Rovers have played their part in the military for seven decades and are still in service today. In fact, from the very beginning the British Army became Land Rover’s largest single customer, immediately overshadowing the agricultural roots that first triggered the Land Rover concept. Even during the early development stage the Ministry of Supply paid close attention to what was going on at Rover and were allocated pre-production vehicles 29 and 30 for their own trial and evaluation. As the Land Rover was first going into production the British Military were discussing the prospect of purchasing 1,000 vehicles. A tall order when the original production rate was planned by Rover to be just 50 per week!
The Land Rover Heritage Collection does not set out to present the ultimate Military Land Rover collection. However, to ignore this important job of work to which Land Rovers have been put since inception would be a travesty. Our military collection commenced when the opportunity arose to acquire the acclaimed life-long collection of SAS and deep penetration recognisance vehicles amassed by an ex-serving SAS trooper. Since then we have added to the collection selectively as the opportunity has arisen to illustrate the depth and breadth of use to which this versatile vehicle has been put by other arms of the British Military. Upfront in the picture above are our two SAS ‘Pink Panthers’ – the collectors’ ‘Holy Grail’.
