Land Rover

The Rover Company was in great trouble after World War II. All models were out of date and they could not get a new model in production fast enough. There was also a need to get production running in the factory at Solihull.
The British government was also in trouble. The enormous costs of WWII had to be paid. To stop the British people from spending their money on unnecessary things the government introduced a tax on consumption, that made cars extremely expensive.
To force British industry to give priority to export, steel was allocated by quotas in propotion to export values. This was extremely hard on the Rover Company that had almost entirely built cars for the British market before the war.
Immediately after the war there were thousands of thousands of Willy's Jeeps for sale in Europe. These vehicles had proved extremely useful in the war and were now much coveted by farmers and other professionals that needed tough vehicles. The chief designer of the Rover Company, Maurice Wilks, bought one to use at his estate. In early 1947 his brother Spencer Wilks, CEO of the Rover Company, asked Maurice what he would do when the Jeep was too old to use. The answer was:
- I have to buy a new Jeep!
The legend notes this as the birth of the Land Rover!
The first prototypes were built in the summer of 1947 and on September 7 it was shown to the board of directors that decided to build a testseries of 25 cars and that the car would be introduced at the International Amsterdam Motor Show in April 1948.
The Rover Company planned to start production of 100 cars per month and later increase to 200 cars per month. In late 1947 they realized that 1000 Land Rovers per year would be enough to give them the needed steel allocation for the passenger car production.
After the April-introduction in Amsterdam in 1948 the Land Rover was shown at a number of agricultural shows in Great Britain and Europe in summer 1948 and orders for cars rolled to the factory. Full scale production started in July and in October Land Rovers were sold in 68 foreign countries. By the end of the year the Rover Company was sure of the success and in 1949 there were as many Land Rovers sold as Rover passenger cars. In 1951 there were twice as many Land Rovers sold as other Rover cars.
So this emegencyproduct from the Rover Company soon became the most important product for the company and remained so for many years.

For years the LandRover Discovery was sold in Japan as Honda Crossroads. Many of these cars were sold second hand in New Zealand during the 90:ies. The cars were genuin LandRovers and most of them, but not all, were rebadged to LandRover when exported as second hand to New Zealand.