The Story

2. Public Acceptance

The land Rover was first shown to the public at the opening of the Amsterdam Motor Show on April 30th, 1948... just one year after the initial idea for the vehicle had first emerged.

During that year, the project had gone from the idea stage, through the drawing board phase and quickly on to the point where nearly fifty prototypes were working hard in order to prove the Land Rover’s worth. These prototypes were performing widely varying roles; the fact that the the Land Rover’s chassis incorporated a central power take-off enabled the vehicle to be harnessed to a whole range of machinery, making a lot of tasks much simpler and quicker to carry out. Its cross-country abilities were also developing, thanks to almost weekly improvements to the prototypes - their abilities at crossing ploughed fields, tackling amazingly steep inclines and fording streams were becoming quite superb.

The original Land Rover of 1948 was aesthetically similar to the later models, but in reality the Land Rover design has changed greatly over the years, whilst still retaining its strong, visual, family identity.

Mechanically, the ‘48 Land Rover was based heavily on what was already in the Rover range, hence the adoption of the 1595cc engine from the Rover P3 after deciding that the 1389cc Rover 10 engine lacked sufficient power. The idea employed on one of the prototypes of using a central steering wheel and centrally positioned driver’s seat was never taken as far as the production stage, despite its obvious advantages of needing no alteration for overseas markets.

At the 1948 Amsterdam Motor Show, Rover exhibited two examples of the new Land Rover and eagerly awaited the comments from both press and public alike. The response was sensational, with the motoring magazines of the time giving Britain’s latest innovation nothing but rave reviews. Autocar, introducing the newcomer, said: ”There is now something to describe which can either be regarded as a private car able to perform many most valuable duties other than sheer transport, or as a general purpose countryside worker which is also capable of providing comfortable and efficient transport”. Motor summed up the Land Rover by calling it a “...go-anywhere vehicle with a plain utility-type body, a portable source of power, and an alternative to the light tractor”. This was exactly the sort of response that Rover had been hoping for, and the public's reaction was equally optimistic. The Land Rover wasn’t being seen as simply an agricultural workhorse; it was viewed by many as a genuine alternative to the standard car, no doubt partly due to its basic launch price of just £450, though buyers paid extra for such “luxuries” as a passenger seat, heater, side screens, spare wheel and a starting handle.