Land Rover Story
A go-anywhere utility vehicle, sketched in the sand of a Welsh beach, that became a design icon.
Land Rover's origin story is famously simple: in 1947, Rover Company chief designer Maurice Wilks sketched an idea for a rugged farm vehicle in the sand at Red Wharf Bay, Anglesey, inspired partly by the wartime Willys Jeep he used on his own farm.
The Land Rover Series I launched in 1948 at the Amsterdam Motor Show, built around a simple, durable design meant to go anywhere and be repaired by hand in the field — a philosophy that still defines the brand.
That utilitarian core produced two very different, equally important lines: the working, go-anywhere Defender lineage descended from the Series trucks, and the Range Rover, launched in 1970, which created the luxury SUV category by pairing genuine off-road capability with comfort previously reserved for saloons.
Land Rover's off-road engineering — permanent four-wheel drive, terrain response systems, wading depth, approach and departure angles — remains the yardstick the marque holds itself to, generation after generation.