Читать книгу Land Rover: The Story of the Car that Conquered the World - Ben Fogle, Ben Fogle - Страница 13

PART II

The huge success of the original Land Rovers of the 1950s and 60s encouraged the company to launch other models, which would in turn greatly influence the design of future Defenders. In fact, the development of all future Land Rover models would become hopelessly intertwined, sharing engines, gearboxes, suspension set-ups … the list is endless. For example, the 200Tdi, 300Tdi and Td5 turbodiesel engines developed for the Discovery transformed the performance of Defenders throughout the 1990s and 2000s. But all the other models, of course, were inspired by the original Land Rover.

Through the 1970s, Land Rover’s position as the world’s best 4×4 utility had been eroded in many of the world’s markets by cheaper alternatives from other manufacturers – particularly Toyota.

Toyota’s story begins in 1941, when the Japanese Imperial Army invaded the Philippines and found a Bantam MkII Jeep abandoned by the Americans. It was shipped back to Japan and handed over to Toyota, who were inspired by it. The resulting AK prototype was used until the end of the war in 1945, and then largely forgotten until 1951, when Toyota re-entered the 4×4 market with the BJ prototype. Again, it was very much based on the American Jeep and the Series I Land Rover (which in itself was based on the Jeep). But the Toyota was bigger and more powerful than both, with a six-cylinder, 3.4-litre petrol engine producing 84bhp.

By 1954, Toyota coined the name Land Cruiser in a bid to attract the same sort of audience as the Land Rover and to boost overseas sales. By 1968, Toyota had sold 100,000 Land Cruisers – and increased the vehicle’s attraction greatly by introducing a powerful Mercedes diesel engine to it.

The Toyota was also cheaper than the Land Rover in most markets, and in places like the Australian Outback it achieved a justified reputation for reliability. Meanwhile, those Land Rovers that were produced through the strike-prone 1970s and early 1980s under British Leyland rule were often of dubious quality and had a reputation for breaking down – often.

Toyotas were cheaper, more powerful and more reliable. It was a no-brainer. And by the time Land Rover did anything about this changing state of the market, the Japanese had made huge inroads into the company’s traditional strongholds in Australia, Southeast Asia and Africa.

In fairness, it was lack of cash from the struggling BL parent company that held back development at Land Rover. While money was ploughed into absurd products like the Austin Princess, Triumph Toledo, Austin Metro and Morris Ital, the Series III of the early 1980s was in most ways little changed from the Series II launched back in 1958.

The arrival of the Range Rover, however, was the tipping point for the company’s fortunes. The car was given a starring role in Blashers’ daring Darien Gap expedition, but it was officially launched on 17 June 1970 – the very last day of Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson’s first term of office. The following day Wilson was deposed by Ted Heath and the Tories. It was ironic, really, as Wilson had pledged back in 1964 to embrace ‘the white heat of technology’, and the new offering from Solihull was that and more.

By the summer of 1970 the Swinging Sixties were over. The Beatles were tearing themselves apart, while England, who had won football’s World Cup back in 1966, were about to lose their champion status in the heat of the 1970 tournament in Mexico.

Most of the optimism of that landmark decade had evaporated as Britain plunged into a new era of industrial strife, decline and inflation. Things were no better at Land Rover. The runaway success of the ultimate go-anywhere utility, launched back in 1948, had begun to slow in recent years, to the extent that sales of the company’s only model – the Series IIA – had become a disappointment. A new model was needed.

These were some of the darkest days of the once-proud British motor industry. In 1968, Rover had been lumped together with much of the remaining, ailing, domestic automotive manufacturers to become part of the British Leyland conglomerate – a name that would become synonymous with poor design, shoddy build quality and disastrous labour relations throughout the 1970s. And it was against this backdrop that British Leyland boss Lord Stokes gave the go-ahead for a new and rather different Land Rover. He was under government orders to launch two new models a year and Range Rover was the first 1970s debutant (the Triumph Stag sports car being the other).

The news wasn’t exactly welcomed by all who worked behind the gates at Land Rover’s plant in Solihull. Many reckoned an off-roader with a touch of class was against the company’s no-frills principles, while others said there’d be no market for it. Yet, against all odds, a small team of engineers and designers who did believe in the new model worked tirelessly around the clock to produce the vehicle that was to become – and remains – a world leader.

What a shock it was, back in 1970, when a fire-breathing V8 4×4 with coil springs and disc brakes all round was released onto the market. This, remember, was a pre-decimalisation time when we carried pounds, shillings and pence in our pockets. Morris Minors and original Volkswagen Beetles were still being manufactured. The last steam trains on British Rail had only been taken out of service two years earlier. The arrival of the Range Rover on our roads was as startling a sight as a Martian knocking on your front door.

At Land Rover, nobody was really sure who the original Range Rover should be aimed at. So in the best tradition of Land Rover’s famed versatility, they steered it towards farmers and provided an easy-clean interior that included rubber mats and vinyl seats. Rover had been working on a larger version of the Land Rover for several years. Back in the early 1950s, Rover engineer Gordon Bashford headed up a project to develop a so-called ‘Road Rover’, but despite reaching prototype stage it was axed in 1958. It wasn’t until 1966 that Bashford and fellow Rover engineer Spen King began work on a new model.

Charles Spencer King – better known by his nickname, Spen – was the nephew of the Wilks brothers. Born in 1925, he left school in 1942 and initially joined Rolls-Royce as an engineering apprentice. But in 1945 he joined Rover and, in 1959, became chief engineer of new vehicle projects. He helped develop the P6 and 2000 Rover saloon cars before his greatest achievement of all: the Range Rover. He died in 2010, aged 85, in a cycling accident near his Warwickshire home.

Spen King is acknowledged to be the godfather of the Range Rover. In the late 1960s Spen was senior project engineer and led the team that devised, designed and produced the vehicle that redefined 4×4 vehicles and which became the benchmark for the legions of SUVs to follow. Within a year they had created a prototype, and by 1969 the design was complete. Work began on a batch of 26 engineering development prototypes, which were badged ‘Velar’ as a decoy for when they were spotted during road tests.

They were certainly eye-catching. The new Range Rover was unlike anything that had gone before, and, after its launch in 1970, the Louvre museum in Paris exhibited one as an ‘exemplary work of industrial design’.

It is often said that the Range Rover was the company’s answer to the customers who had requested a bit of luxury. But don’t for one moment think that this new model was upmarket. There were no carpets and the seats were covered in vinyl – all the better for hosing out the mud. The dashboards were plastic, there was no air con, nor power steering. Only a two-door version was available. All the luxury stuff was to come much later, but at the time it was the ultimate countryside vehicle, with unparalleled on- and off-road performance, thanks to long-travel coil springs, disc brakes all round and the legendary Rover 3.5-litre V8 (actually a 1950s American design, developed by the US manufacturer Buick, but bought by Rover).

However, demand was so great for this car that there was soon a lengthy waiting list of prospective buyers, and for several months after its launch secondhand models were appreciating in value and, when sold, often fetched more than new ones!

Improvements to this model were gradual, due to a lack of funding from the parent company (British Leyland) rather than lack of ambition by the frustrated Rover bosses. In 1975 the whole strike-prone shooting match was effectively nationalised and once-proud marques began to sink without a trace. Land Rover could have so easily disappeared, too, had not fate stepped in. As part of the restructuring of BL in 1978, Land Rover was granted autonomy. Four years later, with the demise of Morris cars, Rover car production was moved to Cowley, Oxford, and the Solihull site was devoted exclusively to 4×4s.

From the very start, the Range Rover had proved that its off-road credentials were a match for its illustrious Land Rover stablemates. The original Range Rover remained in production until 1996, although for the last two years of its life it was re-badged as the Range Rover Classic, to avoid confusion with the second-generation Range Rover that had been launched in 1994. It was as though Land Rover, having enjoyed such huge success with the original Range Rover, was reluctant to let it go, but at the same time it didn’t want the presence of the old model to harm the sales of the new one, so only a restricted range of Classic variants was made available. Bizarrely, the cheapest variants of the second-generation Range Rover were actually cheaper than the top-end Classics.

At the time, Land Rover said that production of the Range Rover Classic would continue as long as there was a demand, but that demand fairly quickly diminished. The final production run, in the autumn of 1995, was a batch of 25 right-hand-drive 25th-anniversary models finished in Oxford Blue metallic, with retro chrome bumpers and beige leather upholstery, Freestyle Choice wheels with Goodyear Wrangler tyres, a CD player and special badges. The Range Rover had been in production for over 25 years and over 300,000 had been built in that time.

The Range Rover transformed the fortunes of Land Rover, and its success became key to the evolution of the Defender itself.