THE FIRST 10 YEARS
The story of Land Rover production vehicles starts here in 1948 with what became later became known as the Series I. Inspired by the famed appreciation by Rover’s chief engineer, Maurice Wilks, that there was an opportunity for Britain to produce a worthy successor to the US Willys Jeep with which it had become acquainted during the war years. Launched hurriedly in Amsterdam after just 10 months of development, what might have been initially conceived as a ‘stop-gap’ expediency to help the Rover Motor Co recover from the post-war gloom, the so called “Land Rover” soon became a runaway Global success. Within just three months the planned production rate was increased by a factor of ten.
Our Series I exhibits chart these early years in the Land Rover story and illustrate the various adaptations that were available from the earliest time, making this a versatile workhorse as never seen before. The immediacy of the project and unprecedented short lead time in development lead to developments being ‘drip fed’ into the specification on a largely piecemeal basis during these early years. Rover was a heavily engineering-lead company and there was no wish to see developmental improvements left on the drawing board for later inclusion.
