Sixty years ago in April 1948, the Land Rover was launched on an unsuspecting world when the Wilks brothers, Maurice and Spencer, revealed the product they hoped would keep the Rover car company alive.
It was just after the war and everything was oriented on exports. If you didn’t export you didn’t get raw materials and Rover’s cars were not exactly keenly sought outside the bookish world of British bank managers.
Within a short time, what had been a surprise at the Amsterdam Motor Show became a familiar sight on British farms and in towns and cities with a significant military presence. It presented Auntie BBC with a problem as the Beeb never mentioned product names but the Land Rover was difficult to pigeonhole. It became the “field car”, a euphemism that forecast the arrival of the Range Rover more than 20 years later.
The irony, of course, is that Rover died but the Land Rover lived, and is now in the company of Indian conglomerate Tata along with Jaguar. For a long time, it was headed for every jungle clearing and obscure place the world could produce but these days the inability to fix it with a screwdriver, spanner, or hammer has brought an end to that role, an irony in view of its new ownership. Diagnostic computers are not easy to come by, and even more difficult to plug into the mains, deep in a rainforest.
Despite that, the Defender, successor to the original 80 inch Land Rover, goes on. There are many features on it that are recognisable although virtually nothing is common to both apart from one component that’s so obscure I’ve forgotten what it is. Something that hasn’t changed much is the design of the door catch set on the front pillar in just the right place to rip your coat, which I’ve done a few times.
Around this time last year, Land Rover made a raft of changes to the Defender. Most significant was ditching the BMW-sourced Td5 engine, which I have never rated and would never own. In its place comes a 2.4 litre four cylinder unit from the Ford Transit, and it’s brilliant.
It makes the Defender feel almost rocket powered whether you are driving the short 90 model or the longer 110, which I tried last year. For the purposes of this anniversary tribute, though, I chose the 90 station wagon which is nearer to the ethos of the original product from the Wilks brothers.
Their first prototype had three seats across the cab and centre steering so it would have suited all markets. The centre steering is gone and these days you normally only get two seats across the front, with a cubby box between. The 90 in its latest iteration will only carry four people though, now with two up front and two behind.
If you are familiar with the 90 station wagon of old, you will know it had four sideways seats in the back. Safety legislation demanded their death and in their place are two fold down forward facing chairs – a sensible idea until you want to use them. Getting in and clambering through to the seats could be an Olympic sport by 2012 as it’s a really difficult challenge surpassed only by getting out, which involves shuffling backwards while bent in half and gingerly lowering your left leg to find the small step. Miss it and you will plunge backwards to your doom.
Land Rover users are accustomed to such hardships and it says plenty for the designers that they managed to come up with such a new, novel and exacting challenge after 60 years of everyone else thinking they had got it all sorted.
That you won’t be comfortable, even with the latest seats and new soft style fascia, as the Defender 90 bounces along is a given. But there are things you will appreciate and if I sit here long enough I’ll think of a list. Principal among them is that it will take you anywhere and not get stuck. But just make sure you have a long enough lead to get power to that diagnostic computer should it break.
Maurice Hardy
We have a soft spot for Land Rover products. After two long wheelbase station wagons, a 109 inch and a 110, two classic V8 Range Rovers, and a diesel Discovery we learned that heartache and big repair bills are a natural occurrence.
But they will take so much abuse it is unreal and with what other vehicle, apart from a beaten up Range Rover, would you consider climbing onto the roof so you had a grandstand for spotting a lost hawk? The dents never came out but were considered a badge of honour.
A guy in the next village has bought the new Defender, a truck cab model. He took his demo drive in a hard top, which was fine, but when his new vehicle was delivered found the new plush seats didn’t allow enough space to squeeze behind the wheel. Pub talk has it that he went back to the dealer and asked for the thinner seats back from the one he had traded in!
That’s the sort of thing you put up with from a Land Rover. It’s what gives them character. And after bouncing along for a while in the latest 90 I said to him indoors that I fancied having another Land Rover. The next big bump jolted me back to reality. But there’s an undeniable appeal about a Land Rover that nothing –and I mean nothing – can ever beat.
Annette Hardy
Car: Land Rover Defender 90 XS Station Wagon
Does it fit your ego?...
0-62 mph: don’t ask
Top speed: whatever your nerves will endure
Bhp: 121 @ 3500 rpm
Torque: 265 lb ft @ 2000 rpm
...and your wallet?...
Price: £26,235
Urban: 22.6 mpg
Extra urban: 32.9 mpg
Combined: 28.3 mpg
CO2 emissions: 266 g/km
Insurance Group: 12
Best bits: rock solid; character; great fun.
