The story
Founded by British Leyland in 1978.1
Originally, these vehicles were simply called the 'Land Rover' – an off-road capable car model of the Rover Company. As 'Land Rover' became established as a brand, the 'Series' indication later became a retronym model name. The Range Rover was introduced in 1970, and the company became a British Leyland subsidiary in 1978. In 1983 and 1984, the long and the short wheelbase Land Rovers were given official names – the One Ten, and the Ninety respectively. Together they were badged the Defender models in 1990, after the 1989 introduction of the new Discovery model.
Rover era
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, worked 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. Starting with the series I Land Rover, all models in this era featured sturdy box-section ladder-frame chassis. Early vehicles like the Series I were field-tested at Long Bennington and designed to be field-serviced.
After the formation of Land Rover Limited in 1978 the hyphen in Land-Rover – as shown in the logo – began to be dropped.
Land Rover Ltd – subsidiary of BL
Land Rover as a company has existed since 1978. Prior to this, it was a product line of the Rover Company, which was 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 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 under the BL umbrella, remaining part of the subsequent Rover Group in 1988 under the ownership of British Aerospace, after British Leyland was broken up and privatised.
BMW era
On 31 January 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 on to Ford Motor Company, becoming part of its Premier Automotive Group. The transition to BMW ownership only just preceded the introduction of the second generation Range Rover, prior to launching Land Rover's first unibody model, the Freelander in 1997. BMW was then responsible for much of the development of the Range Rover III – the first to have a monocoque structure and independent suspension, introduced under Ford in late 2001.
Ford era
After the introduction of the all-new Range Rover in 2001, Ford moved Land Rover further away from its traditional boxed ladder-frames, by introducing a new generation Discovery featuring "Integrated Body Frame", in 2004. From then on, only the Defender continued on Land Rover's traditional since 1948 underpinnings. Use of the Rover V8 engine in Land Rovers also ended with the replacement of the mk. II Discovery.
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 – 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 & 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. 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.
Tata Motors era
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.
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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.
Timeline
1947: Rover's chief designer Maurice Wilks and his associates create a prototype using Jeep chassis and components
1948: The first Land Rover was officially launched on 30 April 1948, at the Amsterdam Motor Show
1958: Series II launched
1961: Series IIA began production
1967: Rover becomes part of Leyland Motors, later British Leyland (BL) as Rover Triumph
1970: Introduction of the Range Rover
1971: Series III launched
1974: Land Rover abandons US market facing competitive pressure from Japanese – brands
1975: BL collapses and is nationalised, publication of the Ryder Report recommends that Land Rover be split from Rover and be treated as a separate company within BL and becomes part of the new commercial vehicle division called the Land Rover Leyland Group
1976: One-millionth Land Rover leaves the production line
1978: Land Rover Limited formed as a separate subsidiary of British Leyland
1980: Rover car production ends at Solihull with the transfer of SD1 production to Cowley, Oxford; Solihull is now exclusively for Land Rover manufacture. 5-door Range Rover introduced
1983: Land Rover 90 (Ninety)/110 (One-Ten)/127 (renamed Defender in 1990) introduced
1986: BL plc becomes Rover Group plc; Project Llama started
1987: Range Rover is finally introduced to the US market, following many years of demand being filled by grey market sales
1988: Rover Group is privatised and becomes part of British Aerospace, and is now known simply as Rover
1989: Introduction of Discovery
1990: The Ninety and One-Ten range of models are given the generic name of Defender
1994: Rover Group is taken over by BMW. Introduction of second-generation Range Rover. (The original Range Rover was continued under the name 'Range Rover Classic' until 1995)
1997: Land Rover introduces the Special Edition Discovery XD with AA yellow paint, subdued wheels, SD type roof racks, and a few other off-road upgrades directly from the factory. Produced only for the North American market, the Special Vehicles Division of Land Rover created only 250 of these bright yellow SUVs.
1997: Introduction of Freelander
1998: Introduction of mark II Discovery
2000: BMW breaks up the Rover Group and sells Land Rover to Ford for £1.8 billion
2002: Introduction of third-generation Range Rover
2004: Introduction of second-generation Discovery, marketed as the Discovery 3, or LR3, depending on market
2005: Introduction of Range Rover Sport
2005: Adoption of Jaguar AJ-V8 engine to replace the BMW M62 V8 in the Range Rover
2006: Announcement of a new 2.4-litre diesel engine, 6-speed gearbox, dash and forward-facing rear seats for Defender. Introduction of the second generation of Freelander (Freelander 2). Ford acquires the Rover trademark from BMW, who previously licensed its use to MG Rover Group
8 May 2007: 4,000,000th Land Rover rolls off the production line, a Discovery 3 (LR3), donated to The Born Free Foundation
12 June 2007: Announcement from the Ford Motor Company that it plans to sell Land Rover and also Jaguar Cars
August 2007: Tata Motors and Mahindra & Mahindra as well as financial sponsors Cerberus Capital Management, TPG Capital and Apollo Global Management expressed their interest in purchasing Jaguar Cars and Land Rover from the Ford Motor Company.
26 March 2008: Ford agreed to sell the Jaguar and Land Rover operations to Tata Motors.
2 June 2008: Tata Motors finalised their purchase of Jaguar and Land Rover from Ford and put them into their new subsidiary, Jaguar Land Rover
2010: Introduction of Discovery 4 / LR4
2011: The Range Rover Evoque introduced
2012: Fourth-generation Range Rover was exhibited at the 2012 Paris Motor Show
1 January 2013: Land Rover and Jaguar Cars merged to form a single company, Jaguar Land Rover Limited, producing vehicles under both marques
2014: The New Discovery Range was unveiled at the 2014 New York Motor Show
1 March 2017: The Range Rover Velar was unveiled in London
June 2018: representatives of the company Land Rover announced the launch of a new project called "Cortex", for the implementation of which will be spent about $5 million. The goal of this project is "to create self-propelled cars-robots that are able to independently navigate off-road in all weather conditions."
September 2019: Land Rover announces it is working on a remote control system for its new Defender that would allow low-speed driving from outside the car
2020: Land Rover Defender (L663) is released.
From Wikipedia’s article on Land Rover, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4