1 decade ago
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By Ray Massey, Transport Editor
Published: 13:39 BST, 5 May 2013 | Updated: 13:39 BST, 5 May 2013
Britain's legendary Land Rover this week celebrates its 65th anniversary with a striking display of its heritage and future technology.
And the message is loud and clear — it might have reached a landmark age, but it’s very far from being pensioned off.
The iconic vehicle started life as a sketch. Rover’s engineering director, Maurice Wilks, drew out on a beach near his holiday cottage at Red Wharf Bay, Anglesey, the rufty-tufty vehicle he needed to replace the U.S. army surplus Jeep he used while there and on the family’s main home and farm in Warwickshire.
Royal approval: The Queen Mother waves to D-Day veterans from the back of a Land Rover in 1994
From 1948, the world’s first mass-produced civilian 4x4 began life as a £450 farmers’ aid. Over the decades came the luxurious, but no less capable, Range Rover, plus the Discovery, Freelander and Evoque.
It’s as adept at tackling the world’s most challenging and inhospitable terrain as negotiating rush-hour gridlock in the urban jungle.
And over six-and-a-half glorious decades, Land Rovers have transported the Queen, prime ministers, including Winston Churchill, intrepid explorers, James Bond and Victoria Beckham as well as legions of school-run mums to the four corners of the Earth.
Birthday celebrations were held at the Packington estate, just outside Solihull — the testing ground for the first prototypes in 1947-8 — through to early Range Rovers from the late Sixties and early Seventies.
More than 130 heritage Land Rover vehicles were on show, including eight chosen to illustrate the decades.
It was also a big day for Roger Crathorne, Land Rover’s oldest and most expert employee, who has spent 50 years with the company, starting as an engineering apprentice at 16.
He said: 'I grew up on the same street as the Land Rover factory in Solihull and I knew as a teenager that I wanted to work for them.'
Roger, who has worked on every model to date, adds: 'The original classic Range Rover from 1970 is my favourite — the car was the pillar of the company and it’s such a classic shape.'
Land Rover also launched a celebratory special edition Defender, the LXV — 65 in Roman numerals — costing £28,765.
Meanwhile, the story of Britain’s top 4x4-maker is told in Land Rover — 65 Years Of Adventure (haynes.co.uk, £35 hardback) by top automotive photographer Nick Dimbleby.
It offers a full account of all Land Rover models through the author’s stunning colour photos — many ofof them previously unpublished.
Fans: The Queen regularly takes to the wheel of a Land Rover and James Bond appears to approve as well
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As the Bank Holiday weekend begins, new research reveals British drivers are spending up to three days a year stuck in gridlock. We rank fifth in Europe for time wasted in jams.
But one silver lining from the economic downturn is that jams eased over the past year as motorists, hit with rising fuel prices, have cut their driving.
The findings are revealed by leading in-car data company INRIX which supplies realtime traffic information to satnav companies.
Worst hit by jams are drivers in Greater London, where last year motorists lost 72 hours of their lives in gridlock — equivalent to three days or nine working days.
It is followed by Greater Manchester (45 hrs), Merseyside (37 hrs), South Nottinghamshire, (36hrs), Greater Birmingham (32 hrs), Belfast (31 hrs), Edinburgh (28 hrs), South Yorkshire (27 hrs), Leeds-Bradford (27 h rs) and Portsmouth-Fareham area (25 hrs).
The average time spent in gridlock across the UK is 29 hours.
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Britain's cyclists could soon be 'going Dutch' thanks to a government-backed roundabout scheme designed to cut road accidents involving cyclists.
Road safety scientists at the Transport Research Laboratory (TR L) in Crowthorne, Berks, have borrowed radical roundabout layouts from Holland.
They segregate cyclists from cars and lorries during one of the trickiest turning manoeuvres on the road.
Solution: A new system which separates cars and cycles on roundabouts is being piloted in London
The roundabouts give priority to cyclists, who pedal around an outer ring, while drivers stay in an inner section.
Britain’s Tour de France and Olympic success has fuelled a cycling boom.
But in recent months there’s been a spate of accidents, several fatal, including many cyclists being crushed under the wheels of turning lorries.
If the trials in London are successful, the roundabouts could be brought in nationwide.
Transport Minister, Norman Baker, said: 'We’re always interested in innovative ideas to improve cyclists’ safety.'
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Last chance today for the ultimate bit of window shopping. If you have a cool £¼ million burning a hole in your pocket, Harrods has the sporty new 6.7-litre Rolls-Royce Wraith Sportback coupe in pride of place in its window in Knightsbridge, London, alongside tributes to the new film version of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby.
But it’ll be gone when the store closes at 8pm tonight. I popped along for its unveiling — it’s on sale now from £235,000 with first deliveries in September.
Flagship London Rolls-Royce dealer HR Owen said it didn’t mind its Berkeley Square showroom being briefly eclipsed.
A spokesman said: 'We invited our top customers to preview the Wraith in this special venue and we’ve been inundated with requests to attend.
'The Harrods window is the perfect place to showcase this car.'
