End of the road for the iconic Land Rover Defender
After nearly 70 years, Land Rover's most iconic vehicle is finally grinding to a halt. The last Defender has rolled off the production line today.
The versatility of them has made it a popular vehicle with a range of people from the Royal Family and military personnel to film-makers and even football managers.
First bought on the scene in April 1948, modelled on the war-time jeep, the popular 4x4 vehicle has proved one of the major successes of British vehicle manufacturing.
Since the 1950s the Queen has regularly been spotted as either a passenger or driver in a Land Rover. In 1951 the then Princess Elizabeth was photographed standing in an open-top Land Rover as she deputised for her father to present the King's Colour to the Royal Air Force at a parade in London's Hyde Park.
In the following years she used Land Rovers during several public engagements, such as during visits to Australia in 1954 and the Channel Islands in 1957.
The Queen stood in a Land Rover at the 1955 European Horse Trials in Windsor Great Park to give her a better view of the action.
The vehicle has also proved a hit with other royals including the Prince and Princess of Wales, who waved to well-wishers as they were driven along a beach in Australia in 1988.
Land Rover has had a colourful history since the first model took a bow more than 60 years ago as part of the Rover Motor Company.
The idea was to produce a cheap, stop-gap vehicle that could be sold abroad and bring in much-needed revenue to the war-ravaged British economy.
Expectations were low with only 200 a week scheduled to be built, but this soon increased to 500 and subsequently Land Rovers were outselling the firm's saloons. Conceived by chief Rover designer Maurice Wilks, he got the idea in another bleak environment, Anglesey in north Wales, where he ran a farm and used an old wartime American Jeep to get around.
He then put on his engineering head, put pen to paper cannibalised some Jeep and Rover components and the first Land Rover was born.
Rover liked the idea of its own all-terrain, four-wheel drive vehicle and in 1948 the Series I was unveiled at the Amsterdam Motor Show and production started at the Rover plant in Lode Lane, Solihull.
Since then Land Rovers have come in all shapes and sizes from tracked vehicles, double axle models, mini fire tenders and converted ambulances to semi-amphibious vehicles.
But Lode Lane has remained the home of Land Rover even after it became part of the JLR group with Jaguar following the Tata takeover in 2008.
The brand is favoured by the Queen as an open-top ceremonial vehicle as well as the military and emergency services.
That original has morphed over six decades into the rugged Defender but the firm has also introduced luxurious models like the Freelander, Discovery, Range Rover and the new Evoque that are still more than capable of taking on the roughest terrain.
Some 10 years later Prince Harry was photographed wearing military camouflage as he arrived at Highgrove House, Gloucestershire, in a Land Rover for his father's 50th birthday party.
British soldiers used the popular 4x4 vehicle to carry out patrols on the streets of Belfast during the Troubles.
The Royal Ulster Constabulary also used Land Rovers. A 1999 image shows one of their vehicles burning in Portadown, County Armagh following a petrol bomb attack.
Bob Paisley and Matt Busby – former Liverpool and Manchester United managers – paraded around the pitch at Wembley Stadium in a Land Rover before the 1983 Charity Shield.
The vehicles were used by British troops during conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan due to their ability to overcome large areas of sand. A number of film-makers have chosen Land Rovers to make their action sequences as exciting as possible. Land Rover Defenders were used in a car chase during the opening sequence of 2012 James Bond movie Skyfall.
The vehicles also featured in Angelina Jolie's Lara Croft: Tomb Raider in 2001 and the 2014 sci-fi adventure Edge of Tomorrow, starring Tom Cruise.
JLR is working on a replacement vehicle for the Defender. A JLR spokesman said the company will hold a small event for workers at the Solihull plant tomorrow to mark the end of Defender production.
Over the last five years Jaguar Land Rover has undergone a revolution. Starting with its launch of the Range Rover Evoque, which rapidly became its best-seller, the company has spent billions on developing new models, expanding its Land Rover factory at Solihull to build Jaguars as well, expanding the Castle Bromwich Jaguar plant and also its factory at Halewood.
