Land Rover Features, Photos and Videos

Land Rover is a luxury car brand that specialises in four-wheel-drive vehicles, owned by British multinational car manufacturer Jaguar Land Rover, which has been owned by India's Tata Motors since 2008. The Land Rover is regarded as a British icon, and was granted a Royal Warrant by King George VI in 1951. In 2001 it received the Queen's Award for Enterprise for outstanding contribution to international trade.

The Land Rover name was originally used by the Rover Company for the Land Rover Series, launched in 1948. It developed into a brand encompassing a range of four-wheel-drive models, including the Defender, Discovery, Freelander, Range Rover, Range Rover Sport, and Range Rover Evoque.

Land Rovers are currently assembled in England, India, China, and other markets.

Originally, the vehicles was simply called the Land Rover – an off-road capable car model of the Rover Company. The "Series" indication later became a retronym model name, once 'Land Rover' had started becoming a brand, with the introduction of the Range Rover in 1970, and eventually even a British Leyland subsidiary in 1978. In 1983 and 1984, the long and the short wheelbase Land Rovers were finally given official names — the One Ten, and the Ninety respectively, and together they were badged the Defender models in 1990, after the 1989 introduction of the new Discovery model.

The design for the original vehicle was started in 1947 by Maurice Wilks. Wilks, chief designer at the Rover Company, on his farm in Newborough, Anglesey, working in conjunction with his brother Spencer who was the managing director of Rover. The design may have been influenced by the Jeep and the prototype, later nicknamed Centre Steer, was built on a Jeep chassis and axles. The early choice of colour was dictated by military surplus supplies of aircraft cockpit paint, so early vehicles only came in various shades of light green; all models until recently feature sturdy box section ladder-frame chassis. Early vehicles like the Series I were field-tested at Long Bennington and designed to be field-serviced.

Land Rover as a company has existed since 1978. Prior to this, it was a product line of the Rover Company which was subsequently absorbed into the Rover-Triumph division of the British Leyland Motor Corporation (BL) following Leyland Motor Corporation’s takeover of Rover in 1967. The ongoing commercial success of the original Land Rover series models, and latterly the Range Rover in the 1970s in the midst of BL's well-documented business troubles prompted the establishment of a separate Land Rover company but still under the BL umbrella, remaining part of the subsequent Rover Group in 1988, under the ownership of British Aerospace after the remains of British Leyland were broken up and privatised.

In 1994 Rover Group plc, including Land Rover, was acquired by BMW. In 2000, Rover Group was broken up by BMW and Land Rover was sold to Ford Motor Company, becoming part of its Premier Automotive Group.

In 2006 Ford also purchased the Rover brand from BMW for around £6 million. BMW had retained ownership of the brand to protect the integrity of the Land Rover brand, with which 'Rover' might be confused in the US 4x4 market and allowed it to be used under licence by MG Rover until it collapsed in 2005, at which point it was offered to the Ford Motor Company, who by then owned Land Rover. On 11 June 2007, Ford announced that it planned to sell Land Rover along with Jaguar Cars. Private equity firms such as Alchemy Partners of the UK, TPG Capital, Ripplewood Holdings, Cerberus Capital Management and One Equity Partners of the US, Tata Motors of India and a consortium comprising Mahindra and Mahindra of India and Apollo Management all initially expressed interest in purchasing the marques from the Ford Motor Company. On 1 January 2008, Ford formally declared that Tata was the preferred bidder. In 2008, On 26 March 2008, Ford announced that it had agreed to sell its Jaguar and Land Rover operations to Tata Motors, and that it expected to complete the sale by the end of the second quarter of 2008.

On 18 January 2008, Tata Motors, a part of the Tata Group, established Jaguar Land Rover Limited as a British-registered and wholly owned subsidiary. The new company was to be used as a holding company for the acquisition of the two businesses from Ford - Jaguar Cars Limited and Land Rover. That acquisition was completed on 2 June 2008 at a cost of £1.7 billion. Included in the deal to buy Land Rover and Jaguar Cars were the rights to three other British brands: the Daimler marque, as well as two dormant brands Lanchester and Rover.

On 1 January 2013, the group, which had been operating as two separate companies (Jaguar Cars Limited and Land Rover), although on an integrated basis, underwent a fundamental restructuring. The parent company was renamed to Jaguar Land Rover Automotive PLC, Jaguar Cars Limited was renamed to Jaguar Land Rover Limited and the assets (excluding certain Chinese interests) of Land Rover were transferred to it. The consequence was that Jaguar Land Rover Limited became responsible in the UK for the design, manufacture and marketing of both Jaguar and Land Rover branded products, and Land Rover and Jaguar Cars ceased to be separate vehicle producing entities.

Land Rovers were manufactured primarily at the Solihull plant, near Birmingham, but production of the Freelander was moved to the Halewood Body and Assembly plant near Liverpool, a former Ford car plant. The Freelander is also assembled in Knock-down kit (CKD) form at Land Rover's facility in Pune, India. As of 2015, the company continued to expand by building locally in India as well as increasing the number of models made at JLR’s Chikhali facility near Pune to include the Discovery Sport and Evoque.

Defender models are assembled under licence in several locations worldwide, including Spain (Santana Motors), Iran (Pazhan Morattab), Brazil (Karmann), and Turkey (Otokar).

In May 2010, Tata Motors announced that it plans to build Land Rover and Jaguar models in Mainland China (PRC) as the company seeks to cut costs and expand sales.

Range Stormer – Land Rover's first concept vehicle, unveiled at the 2004 North American International Auto Show, later became the Range Rover Sport.(Gritzinger, 2004).

Land Rover LRX – Land Rover's second concept vehicle, first unveiled at the 2008 Detroit Auto Show. Originally a vehicle with ERAD technology, the production version did not include this. The car was then launched in 2011 as the Range Rover Evoque, and was the first Range Rover branded product to be offered with front wheel drive, and no low ratio transfer box.

Land Rover DC100 – Land Rover's third concept vehicle, first unveiled at the 2011 Frankfurt Auto Show, designed to be a replacement for the Land Rover Defender, though it is unlikely that the Defender's replacement will be exactly the same as the DC100 concept.

Land Rover Discovery Vision Concept – Land Rover's fourth concept vehicle, first unveiled at the 2014, was designed to be a replacement for the Land Rover Discovery, This concept features Transparent Bonnet, Suicide doors, and Laser assisted lamps (there is a very little chance this will be included in any future production vehicles).

Models developed for the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) include:

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