He was also convinced that a permanent four-wheel drive transmission was needed both to provide adequate handling and reliably absorb the power required for the vehicle to be competitive. King is said to have been convinced of coil springs while driving a Rover P6 across rough scrubland on part of the Solihull factory site that was being redeveloped. Rover bought a Bronco, which featured the sort of long-travel coil spring suspension necessary for the required blend of luxury car comfort and Land Rovers proven off-road ability. To provide Rover a nudge to step up, the president of the companys USA operations shipped a Land Rover Series II 88 to Britain fitted with an advanced small block all-aluminium Buick V8 engine. The Jeep Wagoneer proved the concept further in the direction Rover had several times attempted, but with more power. Proto SUVs such as the International Harvester Scout (1961) and the Ford Bronco (1966) began the skew of 4x4s towards speed and comfort while retaining more than adequate off-road ability for most private users. In 1958 the first of the Road Rover development cars was built, combining the Land Rovers tenacity with the comfort of a Rover saloon car.ĭubbed the Road Rover, it featured a Land Rover chassis and running gear clothed in a functional estate car-like body. While available with features such as an interior light, heater, door and floor trims and upgraded seats, the estate car retained the base vehicles tough and capable suspension as well as its mediocre road performance. However, the high price of adding such car-like features as seven seats, floor carpets, a heater, a one-piece windscreen resulted in fewer than 700 being sold before being dropped in 1951.īased on the commercial panel van variant Land Rover, it had seats fitted to the load space and windows cut into the sides.

In 1949 the Land Rover estate car was released, with a coach-built wood-framed body by Tickford. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. At that time, Land Rover rebranded the original Range Rover under the newly coined term Range Rover Classic, to distinguish it from its P38A successor, when the two were briefly built alongside, and applied the name retrospectively to all first-generation Range Rovers.

Classic range rover production numbers