FREE RANGE
Upward mobility is a feature of many great British brand stories. Shoe manufacturer Clarks and clothier Barbour, for example, are both premium names with decidedly quotidian beginnings. The fate of our car makers is far more variable, but one which has very successfully expanded its homeland from farmer’s field to the chic streets of London is Land Rover.
What is common to these British tales of achievement is that the actual product didn’t really change much. A Barbour jacket has always been a highly-waterproof garment constructed principally of waxed cotton. 49 years after the Series One Land Rover first extricated itself from a muddy puddle, the company was still making 4WD vehicles popular with farmers and soldiers. In
