Origins

Although it has subsequently become a military icon in its own right, it is impossible to tell the story of the early military Land Rover without referring to two other vehicles. The first of these is the US-built Willys Jeep. Without the Jeep it would be safe to say that there would almost certainly be no Land Rover. The other is the Austin Champ, the ill-fated British attempt to produce a home-grown alternative to the Jeep.

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Land Rover Series I mounted Royal Air Force Police from the Provost Headquarters (PHQ) provide escort for a high-ranking RAF officer at a Tactical Airforce (TAF) in what was then West Germany. (RAFM)

The Rover Company, which developed the mighty Land Rover, had an excellent pedigree. Its origins can be traced back to the 1860s when James Starley established the Coventry Sewing Machine Company with Josiah Turner. In 1868, the company started to produce French-designed velocipedes and the company name was changed to Coventry Machinists. Starley recruited his nephew John Kemp Starley but, within a year, he had set up his own company, Starley & Sutton at Meteor Works, Coventry. Widely acknowledged to be the father of the modern pedal cycle, it was John Starley who developed the so-called safety cycle, the design of which still forms the basis of the majority of modern bicycles. The name Rover was adopted in 1884. In 1896 Starley founded the Rover Cycle Company, capitalised at ?150,000, and imported some Peugeot motorcycles in 1897 with a view to moving into the production of powered cycles.

Starley died in 1901 at the age of 46 but, in 1904, under a new managing director, Harry

Smyth, the company he founded continued to work on motorcycles, producing the first example in 1902. At the same time, the company also began to construct motorcars. Motorcycles were abandoned in 1905 and cycle production ceased in 1906 when the name was changed to the Rover Motor Company. More than 750 motorcars were produced in the first year of manufacture.

Rover cars were always aimed squarely at the affluent middle classes and, despite some serious setbacks during the depression years, the company established a reputation for building solid, dependable vehicles.

In 1928 a shareholders* action committee appointed Colonel Frank Searle to the board and he, in turn, employed Spencer B. Wilks, who had managed the Hillman Motor Company prior to its take-over by the Rootes Group, as General Manager. Wilks joined Rover in September 1929 and became Managing Director in 1933, and his acumen and foresight almost certainly saved

Above: Produced by Ford and Willys-Overland. the standardised World War Two Jeep provided the pattern for all subsequent military vehicles of this type. (PW)

Rover from suffering the fate of so many of the smaller motor manufacturers. Wilks appointed his brother Maurice to the design department.

During World War Two the company abandoned vehicle production, concentrating instead on engine design. In 1943, Rover ‘swapped' their jet engine project with Rolls-Royce, receiving in return manufacturing rights to the Meteor and Meteorite engines which were used to power tanks and large military vehicles.

When peace came in 1945, Rover had plans to supplement its luxury motorcars with a smaller, cheaper model known as the M type. Development work on the M type had started in 1944 but had been abandoned due to a shortage of steel and the British government’s insistence that exports were to take priority.

Demand for the Meteor and Meteorite engines continued well into the 1960s but, without theM type, the company was facing something of a shortfall with no immediate prospect of how it could be filled. To make matters worse, it appeared that there was little export potential for the existing product range which meant that Rover was unlikely to receive adequate supplies of steel.