How did the Land Rover become a brand of the Rover Company? Now let’s start way back, let’s discuss the Rover Company who would go on to offshoot both Land Rover and Range Rover. The Rover Company was founded in 1878 by John Kemp Starley and William Sutton.. Starley is considered the inventor of the modern bicycle with the Rover Safety Bike.. The Rover company started off doing what many other early manufacturers did, producing bicycles. Side note, at the time many bicycles were the penny-farthing or high-wheel tricycles.. The safety bike changed the landscape of bicycles by being rear-wheel drive, chain drive cycle with two same-sized wheels. A pivotable moment for the Rover company would be when John Starley imported a Peugeot motorcycle in 1899 and used it for experimental development. Clearly this shows a turning point from bicycles to motorcycles. And unfortunately at of 46 Starley died suddenly and the Rover company would be taken over by the motor industry pioneer, bicycle designer and purported fraudster, Harry John Lawson. I did a little research on that “fraudster” title. I am not sure if he was that or just a dreamer… Under Lawson in Rover began producing automobiles in 1901 and motorcycles in 1902, usually those go the other way around.. During WWI rover did just fine producing motorcycles and lorries, it was after the way that they did not hit the ground running… But luckly for them but not so much the rest of the world, WWII would happen. Many automotive manufacturers did well and some were even saved by war procurement contracts, Austin Motor Company for example.. Let’s paint a picture of the times, it’s post WWII and you know what the UK had a lot of skirting around? Jeeps! American made jeeps! And this did not please the British government or monarchy. Every European government was telling their manufacturers to export or die. This utilitarian 4wd off roader design was created by Maurice Wilks chief designer of Rover working along with his brother Spencer who was director of Rover. And it was, the Land Rover was heavily influenced by the jeeps of the era.. the prototype was even built on a jeep chassis. One fun fact that I like to point out is that the first Land Rovers came in various shades of green… This was due to what was available from military surplus supplies of aircraft cockpit paint. Like I like to do, let’s paint a picture of the times… it’s three years after the end of WWII the queen of England is seeing an ungodly number of jeeps skirting about and she isn’t having it… So she says we need an british version of these. The series I, as mentioned before this was designed for light industrial use with a steel box-section chassis and aluminum body-powered with a 1.6 liter petrol engine with a four-speed gearbox. “This incorporated an unusual four-wheel-drive system, with a freewheel unit (as used on several Rover cars of the time). This disengaged the front axle from the manual transmission on the overrun, allowing a form of non-permanent 4WD. A ring-pull mechanism in the driver's footwell allowed the freewheel to be locked to provide more traditional 4WD.” In 1952 increased engine size to 2 liter, they would switch to a more conventional 4WD system. An important thing to note, this was also the time that the Land Rover went from a commercial vehicle classification to a multi purpose vehicle… this changed the tax status and allowed it to go beyond a speed of 30mph.. All that because an owner appealed to the Law Lords after getting charged with exceeding the limit. Now originally Land Rover was intended to be just a single model offering available for only 2 or 3 years, you know to clear those Jeeps post WWII, get some export orders, cuase you remember “export or die” was a common mantra from European governments to their automotive manufacturers… However, The Rover Company saw some future in creating a brand and the series I would only become that after they decided to create a series II.. Ten years later in 1958 the series II launched and was the first vehicle to use the well-known 2.25 liter petrol engine.. This would be the standard engine unit till the 1980s when diesel became more popular. The series II was available in a 2dr off road vehicle, 4 door offroad, and a 2dr pick up. Just a few years later in 1961 we would see the Series IIA, by the eye there is not much difference between the series II and the IIA.. A few cosmetic changes.. Powered by the 2.25 liter and the 2.6 liter six cylinder engine available for the long-wheelbase models in 1967. “811 of these were NADA (or North American Dollar Area) trucks, which were the only long-wheelbase models made for the American and Canadian markets.” In 1969 the headlamps would move from their center grill location to the wings on all models. Now what is behind me is the 1969 Series IIA powered by a 2,286CC four cylinder capable of 72hp, four speed manual gear box. This is one of 1,200 imported to the states that year.
