National Land Rover Day, marked 70 years to the dot since the first Land Rover made its debut at the Amsterdam Motor Show.
A full days’ event commemorated the occasion – beginning with a convoy of vehicles that travelled from the historic Lode Lane, Solihull factory to Land Rover Classic Works headquarters in Coventry; storied employees and marque devotees then participated in the making of a birthday video, followed by a live film broadcast worldwide on YouTube.
Guests at Land Rover Classic Works invited to the screening were treated to a full line of Land Rovers old and new: these included HUE: the first prototype Land Rover, the original two-door Range Rover and the seven-seater Discovery.
Land Rover Classic Works began celebrating the green oval’s 70th in January, when it revealed plans to sympathetically renovate the sole survivor of three car pre-production from the original Amsterdam motor show launch on April 30 1948.
LAND ROVER TIMELINE
1948 Land Rover Series I launched at the Amsterdam Motor Show
1953 Long Wheelbase version of the Series I is introduced
1956 Oxford and Cambridge teams complete on London to Singapore expedition in a Series I
1958 Land Rover Series II unveiled
1970 Original two-door Range Rover (the Classic) goes on sale
1971 Land Rover Series III launched
1972 Range Rover crosses Darien Gap on 18,000-mile Trans-America expedition
1976 1,000,000th Land Rover built
1979 A Range Rover wins the inaugural Paris-Dakar rally (and again in 1981)
1981 Land Rover begins partnership with Camel Trophy
1981 Four-door Range Rover released
1989 Land Rover Discovery, the third Land Rover model, goes on sale
1990 Original ‘Landie’ relaunched and renamed Defender
1994 Second generation Range Rover launched
1997 All-new Freelander is unveiled with Hill Descent Control
2001 Third-generation Range Rover with all-round independent air suspension revealed
2003 Inaugural G4 challenge sees 16 teams traverse USA, South Africa and Australia
2004 Range Stormer Concept previews performance Range Rover and three-door body
2004 Discovery 3/LR3, the third-generation Discovery, launched at New York Motor Show
2005 All-new Range Rover Sport unveiled
2006 Freelander 2/LR2 launched – the first Land Rover to be manufactured at Halewood
2009 Fourth generation of the Land Rover Discovery introduced
2010 Range Rover Evoque launched
2012 Fourth-generation Range Rover introduced – the first all-aluminium SUV
2013 New generation of Range Rover Sport unveiled at New York Motor Show
2014 Special Vehicle Operations (SVO) division is officially launched
2014 Range Rover Sport SVR debuts
2015 Trio of end-of-line Defender editions revealed with biggest sand drawing at Red Wharf Bay in the UK to commemorate Spencer Wilks’ original Land Rover sketch (above)
2015 One-of-a-kind Land Rover ‘Defender 2,000,000’ sells for £400,000 at charity auction
2016 Last Defender rolls off the production line
2017 Land Rover launches the fourth Range Rover, the Velar
2018 Limited Edition Range Rover SV Coupé debuts at Geneva Motor Show
2018 Snow artist Simon Beck recreates a 250 meter wide equivalent of the Red Wharf Bay Defender sand outline, 2700m above sea level in the French alps (below)
LAND ROVER’S 70 YEARS ON FILM
