There's only one Number One…
IN 1947, when The Rover Company had the idea for a vehicle that would improve upon the Second World War Jeep, it began by creating the Centre Steer, which is often referred to as the first Land Rover. It was actually based on a Jeep owned by Maurice Wilks, Rover’s Technical Director, so it’s more of a concept vehicle than a prototype Land Rover. After experimenting with chassis specifications, Rover built 48 pre-production vehicles numbered 01 to 48, each of which had either an L or an R prefix indicating left-or-right-hand drive.
R01, which is the British Motor Museum’s renowned HUE 166, is therefore considered to be the first Land Rover. But before the final pre-pros had been completed, Rover deemed itself happy with the design and the first production Land Rover, chassis R860001, was built. This is, of course, the equally famous JUE 477, recently renovated by Julian Shool-heifer and his team for Sir Jim Ratcliffe, the Ineos boss and the man behind the Grenadier project.
Such a neat and logical approach to prototypes and production vehicles would not be repeated until 17 years later when the first of the vehicles that would eventually be known as the Range Rover were built. Seven engineering prototypes were made between 1967 and 1969, the first two of which bore only a limited resemblance to the final product. The engineering prototypes were given the identification numbers 100/1 to 100/7 reflecting the project’s name, 100
