This is the first pre-production Land Rover and was sold in July 1948 to a farmer in Warwickshire. At the end of its working life, it was bought back by the Rover Company to be restored.

The Land Rover was designed by brothers Maurice and Spencer Wilks, respectively Chief Engineer and Managing Director of the Rover Company in the late 1940s. Having closely examined a family-owned Willys Jeep used for farm work, the brothers were convinced they could produce something superior.

The Land Rover was initially intended to be a stop-gap vehicle for the new Solihull factory, which had been a shadow factory during the war. Using as little sheet steel as possible during post-war shortages, a strong aluminium-magnesium alloy, Birmabright, was used for the body panels instead. Within a year it was outselling Rover’s other cars. The Land Rover utilised the Rover P3 engine and transmission, but its initial layout was based on the Willys Jeep, so as a result the Land Rover’s dimensions were very similar.

Land Rover production reached one million in June 1976 and later rebranded as Defender. Numbers reached two million in 2015 before production stopped in January 2016.